


Ouroboros

by miserygrave



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Codependency, Hurt/Comfort, Jesse cries a lot, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Unhealthy Relationships, Walt is trying to not be an asshole, probably more italics than needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-08-20 21:50:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 43,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16563764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miserygrave/pseuds/miserygrave
Summary: The memory of the compound washes over him. He remembers bullets raining over him, the smell of blood, the feeling of choking Todd to death, of finally being freed from that compound by Mr. White - and then, screaming down the road away, it turns black. And now he’s here.Like the snake eating its own tail, the story of Jesse Pinkman and Walter White never seems to end itself. Post-Felina, the two find themselves returning to the fateful days just prior to their initial meeting two years ago, and struggle to find their footing after everything that happened has simply been washed away.





	1. Awaken

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of an experimental fic, and my first brba fic to boot. I love the characters that we were left with at the end of Felina - a traumatized but finally free Jesse, and a tired, grieving Walter White. Maybe it's a little cruel, but I wanted to see that if they could go back and change things, how it would happen, what would change and what wouldn't.
> 
> There's a lot of Jesse angst and hurt and some personal wish fulfillment of Walt finally owning up to what he's done. Apologies if anything seems OOC! This *will* eventually evolve into a romantic and sexual relationship, so if that discomfits anyone, please turn back now. Otherwise, please let me know if you enjoyed!

There's a ringing in his ears as though an explosion had just gone off next to him, deafening the world as he struggles to sit up, the piercing sound like a knife digging into him. He screws his eyes shut in pain, struggles to breathe. The ground - or whatever he's on - is soft beneath him, and he feels fabric when he flexes his fingers in it. Turning his head slightly, he can feel the embrace of the sun casting itself on him.

_Where am I?_

He feels a sudden jerk in his stomach, a mixture between hanging upside down on a rollercoaster and being kicked so hard he can’t breathe, and he keels over, vomiting his guts up for what feels like ages. When his stomach stops heaving, the ringing slowly subsides in his ears and he cracks an uneasy eye open. He's on a bed, unfortunately now sporting a puddle of bile. He wipes his mouth shakily with the back of a hand and turns his head slightly and carefully to avoid that kick of nausea, sees the sun streaming through an open window. Slowly the room comes into focus, and he reels backwards, feeling as though he's about to puke again.

It's his room. It's _his fucking room_ in his _Aunt Ginny's house._

Jesse sits there for a long time, staring stupidly at everything around him. When he finally stumbles off the bed, he explores the house on shaky legs with cotton in his head and acid in his mouth. It's the same as it was before his parents remodelled it, the homeliness and softness still carrying on beyond the death of his aunt before it was neutered and cut out by his parents. He wanders into a bathroom, and stares at the stranger in the mirror.

There's a young, fresh-faced boy staring back at him, short hair, stubble dusting his face, and scared blue eyes. When he reaches out to the mirror, the boy reaches back to him.

He feels a pressure building in his chest, behind his eyes, feeling as though someone's finger was hovering just above the trigger of a gun and preparing to fire right into his heart. Everything inside him wants to break down crying then and there, but all he manages to feel is numb.

The memory of the compound washes over him. He remembers bullets raining over him, the smell of blood, the feeling of choking Todd to death, of finally being freed from that compound by _Mr. White_ \- and even _thinking_ that name makes the pressure inside him almost physically painful, the finger landing fully on the trigger of that gun but not quite pulling. Just like he hadn’t pulled the trigger and killed Mr. White. Even though he’d wanted it. Even though Mr. White had wanted it. He’d simply gotten in to a car after sharing a look with the other man that seemed to say, “Finally, we see each other.” It was a goodbye. An apology. One final tender thing to share between them amongst the carnage.

And then, screaming down the road away, it turns black. And now he’s here.

He stands looking into the mirror for a long time, wondering at the clean face, no scars, no bruises, no circles under his eyes or redness from weeping. When his hands dig into his pockets he doesn't find Andrea and Brock's photo, instead closing around a small bag of meth. He pulls it out and stares at it.

The first thought to cross his mind is, _It's not blue._ And he bends over, throws it into the toilet and flushes it down on impulse.

The numbness doesn't go away for the rest of the night, and he sleeps there, curled up on the tiled floor of the bathroom, clutching his knees to himself as though he was back in the pit.

When he wakes, he wanders through the house again. It's all still there. The boy in the mirror, the welcoming warmth of his aunt's home, _everything._ He finds the bed, smelling of vomit, and his phone falls onto the ground as he strips the sheets off in a haze.

The blinking phone display shows messages.

He listens to four voicemails from Emilio, all demanding to know where he was, why he hadn't gone to Emilio's to cook, and that if he knew what was good for him and didn't want to get beaten, then he'd get his skinny white ass over the instant he got up. When he reads his texts, it's more of the same, not-so-vague threats and demands, plus one from Badger asking if he wanted to hang out and if he had any crystal to hook them up with.

He's vaguely surprised that he feels nothing when he sees Emilio's name. The smell of blood and hydrofluoric acid had never left him after that day, had always seemed to haunt the house, lingering even after his parents had remodeled it. Emilio was his childhood friend, and his partner before he'd fallen into the hands of Mr. White, but hearing this ghost talking to him on the phone, it didn’t inspire anything but exhaustion in him.

He doesn't respond to Emilio, or Badger. Instead, he finds his fingers automatically tapping in a familiar phone number and holding the phone to his ear as it rang.

It rings briefly, then stops.

“We're sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again."

He pulls the phone away and looks at it with a creased brow for a minute before it clicks. _He_ doesn't have his second phone yet. When Jesse realizes he dialed Mr. White, that number still burned into his mind, the numb haze slips away slightly, and he finds himself running to the bathroom to puke his guts up. He cries, hunched over the toilet until his eyes feel sore and achy, his throat scratchy, and he wipes his nose on his sleeve before pulling himself back together.

Jesse has to see him. Just see. He swears that he won't talk to him, that he won't reach out to him. He promises himself that a thousand times before he manages to get himself into his car. It’s just curiosity, seeing how far this demented daydream will take him.

Jesse's hands shake on the wheel, and he doesn't stop shaking the entire drive to Mr. White's house. _Just to see._

He pulls up to the curb far enough from the house that he feels confident ( _not)_ that no one in the house can see him. The Aztek is the only vehicle there - and fuck if he doesn’t feel a jolt of nostalgia seeing that ugly old thing - and Jesse can feel himself start to hyperventilate through gritted teeth. What the _fuck_ is he doing here? What is his plan? His knuckles go white on the steering wheel as he fights down a wave of nausea. He doesn't even have a gun, although at the deepest part of his heart he knows he could never in his life shoot Mr. White. Not even when he asked. Not even when he _should._

The front door of the house opens, and Jesse sees him. He has hair, like he did in the compound, but a moustache instead of a beard. He's wearing plain clothes, thin wire frame glasses, and he's spinning his keys in his hand. Jesse sees a wolf in sheep's clothing; an angry, hungry animal hiding behind the mundane. Mr. White had, all the way to the very end, held this aura of incredible danger, even if his face looked tired and old, even as he stood there bleeding and dying.

He's out of his car before he can register it, and halfway to his partner - _not my partner anymore,_ his mind whispers - before he realizes what he's doing but it's too late. Mr. White's head had turned toward the movement in the corner of his eye and he locks gazes with an abruptly terrified Jesse. And he can't run, can't move, can't do anything as Mr. White comes towards him with wide eyes and open arms.

The finger finally pulls the trigger in his chest as Mr. White's arms wrap tightly around him right in the middle of the street, pull him into his broad chest. Jesse feels himself shatter into pieces, the haze that had carried him through this bizarre situation completely vanishing as he bawls his eyes out and clutches onto Mr. White. He holds on as though letting go for even a second would _kill_ him. Mr. White holds him so tightly in return it almost hurts, and a low voice in his ears hushes him like he's an unruly child having a tantrum. He feels dry, chaste kisses being pressed to the side of his face as he cries loud and ugly into Mr. White's shoulder.

“Jesse… It's okay now. You're alright. Hush, son,” Mr. White murmurs into his ear over and over, sounding so soft and gentle that Jesse can almost pretend that the past two years never happened.

He hates the man hugging him so much, wishes that God himself would strike him down because Jesse can't.

He doesn't know how long they stand there, but every time Mr. White tries to pull away, Jesse clenches his fingers tightly into the man's shoulders and sobs louder. And every time, Mr. White pulls him back in deeper, holds him tighter until Jesse feels as though he'll be pulled right inside, pushed into the nook right next to this man's heart.

A honk startles them briefly, but Jesse still refuses to relinquish his grip. After a moment of hesitation that Jesse can feel run across Mr. White's shoulders under is hands, he gets dragged across the street towards Mr. White's house and the interrupting vehicle goes past them.

“Jesse,” Mr. White says, voice thick. “Jesse.”

 _God_ , he just wants so badly to pretend the past two years were just a dream. He wants to stay wrapped up in this hug forever, avoid facing the world for just a while, wants to feel like the tight pressure of Mr. White's arms can piece him back together even though it was those arms that broke him apart a thousand times before.

Eventually Mr. White manages to drag him back to his front door, opens it even as Jesse can't stop himself from whining as the arms loosen around him and part of him wants to bite his own damn tongue off before he can say anything he'll regret when he comes back to himself. He can't even manage to feel embarrassed when Mr. White's lips press to his forehead in apology.

“Skyler isn't here,” Mr. White says, manhandling him to the couch. “We can stay, for awhile.”

Jesse can't stop shaking, and he swears on his life that the only thing stopping him from shaking apart into dust is Mr. White. He digs his fingers in and feels a sickening burst of anger unfurl in the pit of his stomach, all the anger he hadn’t had time to digest and unfurl in the compound. All that blinding white rage he’d had that had dwindled down into a pit of ashes and embers in his stomach and that had nearly gone out completely when he’d seen the bullet wound in Mr. White’s side.

“How _could_ you?” he whispers accusingly, sniveling into the older man's shoulder. He doesn't know exactly what he's accusing him of - Jane? Gale? Brock? Andrea? Jack and Todd? There's a laundry list of ghosts hanging around his neck like a noose, put there in large part because of Mr. White. Because of Heisenberg and his empire.

The logical part of his brain knows that every step of the way he could've said no. Mr. White might be the devil with a tongue of silver and a touch of gold, but at every turn until the end Jesse had gone along with it, let himself be talked into believing that the man was doing what was best.

Mr. White rubs his back in soothing circles with one hand and runs through Jesse's hair with the other. “I'm sorry,” he says, with a voice low and broken and sad, “I'm so sorry.”

And God help him, Jesse believes him. He could probably count on one hand the times that the other man had ever apologized and had the apology feel truly sincere. But it doesn't matter if it's sincere. Not anymore. They're so far beyond forgiveness that it almost seems like a foreign concept.

He thinks about his time in the pit in the ground, being beaten and forced to cook without dignity or ever a kind hand. Todd had always been eerily polite, but distantly unconcerned when the others let off steam by kicking around the resident rat. As long as he could cook, as long as he could produce the meth that Lydia required, it didn’t matter what happened. There was no one there to protect him. There was no way out. “You did that to me,” Jesse says, blind with tears and hurt.

“I know,” Mr. White hushes, lips grazing Jesse's temple. “I hurt you.”

“You told them to _kill me_ -” Jesse starts bawling anew, holding onto the man that had destroyed him, had killed him in every way except the physical.

In the pit, for those hard, cruel months, after Andrea's death, Jesse had had nothing to keep him grounded in reality save for the picture he kept in his pocket. He cradled it when he slept, looked at it when awake and not cooking, thought of it when he was. He'd wanted to die so badly and sometimes felt he would, just from the pure grief alone. But still, some stubborn part of him dreamt of being saved - of someone who loved him, of _Mr. White_ coming, pulling him out of the dirt and holding him.

And his saviour had come. And he’s here, now, holding Jesse so tightly and yet so gently and whispering soft things that made it all not hurt quite so badly. Jesse wants to yell at him, curse him, force him out of his head - force him out of the dark, pitiful, needy place that Mr. White had occupied for two years.

Mr. White’s DEA brother-in-law had told him that Mr. White cared for him. In the moment, he hadn’t believed him, not after everything. But he’d been the one to come for Jesse. He’d been the one to kill those Nazi fucks. He’d taken a bullet, protecting Jesse’s body with his own.

What was the truth? Did Mr. White hate him or care for him? And for that matter, did he hate Mr. White or did he...

“I'm sorry,” Mr. White says again, quietly and unknowingly disrupting Jesse’s mounting panic attack. “You… I… I - When you pushed me away, when you went to Hank and brought him out there I felt like you had thrown everything away. Like you'd thrown _me_ away.”

Mr. White pulls back, cradling Jesse's face in his warm, rough palms. “When Hank died, I felt so angry. I took it out on you. You didn't deserve that. I've done so many awful things to you, even if my intentions were… Even if I meant well, all I did was ruin the things I cared about. And that includes you, Jesse.” Mr. White's eyes stare right into his, and just like that Jesse knows in his heart of hearts that he'll cave to Mr. White again, just like he always has. Because without fail, Mr. White always wins and Jesse always rolls.

This time, at least, Jesse sees him for who he really is. He sees the truth.

“Why didn’t you just kill me yourself?” Jesse asks hoarsely. He doesn’t really want to know. He doesn’t want to hear about how Mr. White ordered his death and couldn’t even look him in the eyes and do it himself.

But Mr. White shakes his head and says, “I could never kill you, Jesse. I never wanted to kill you, until you refused to meet me in the square and I knew you weren’t coming back to me. I-I was trying to protect myself, and then after Hank…” Mr. White shakes against him and for a brief moment Jesse thinks he’s going to start crying to but his shaking stops and the man simply takes a deep breath.

He can’t believe his ears. “You - There was a guy at the square. Don’t _lie_ to me anymore, don’t fucking lie, you were gonna -”

Mr. White’s thumb rubs under his eye and wipes away the wet, salty tracks. “No, Jesse. No lies. I don’t know what man you’re talking about, but I swear to you that I wanted to just speak with you. To try and make you understand.”

Jesse quivers. There’s no fucking way Mr. White’s being honest, but he can’t help but believe him, blinking away more tears as Mr. White keeps rubbing his thumb back and forth so gently. And Jesse sees the truth. He’d fucked things up. He’d walked away without giving Mr. White a chance, and because of his stupid paranoia he’d gotten Schrader and his partner killed, and he’d ruined every last little chance Mr. White had been willing to give him.

“I wish that you would have shot me,” Mr. White confesses, looking exhausted. “I wanted to pay back even an ounce of the blood I'd spilled. Made you spill. But you -” and at that his voice becomes choked. “Why didn't you?”

 _Because you saved me,_ Jesse thinks. _Because I love you. Because no matter what bad blood there is between us, I could never kill you._ Instead of saying all those things, Jesse pushes his face into the broad chest in front of him, sniffling pathetically. “No more blood. No more ghosts. I can't do that anymore, I _can_ 't.”

“You won't, not ever again, Jesse.” Mr. White's voice sounds so sure that Jesse almost believes him. He’s said it so many times before, and it’s never been true, but he wants to believe again, just once. It's strange, almost otherworldly, the power he can put into the tone of his voice, make it seem like he could see how the universe unfolded before them and point out the best path forward. “I won't ever make you do that again, I _swear_ to you.”

Jesse doesn’t care if he swears on his life. On his children’s lives. Mr. White doesn’t know how to not use people, how to not hurt people. But he plays along with the facade. “Okay.” Mr. White pats the back of his head and holds him tighter. “But you… You can’t either. You can't do all that shit anymore, please please _please_ -”

Mr. White doesn't say anything, just holds him until he's calm again. When Jesse stops crying, stops nearly hyperventilating, stops feeling like he's about to crumble away from all the fucked up things in his head, Mr. White pulls away and tells him to stay put. He doesn't watch what he does, too tired to even stay upright without the other man holding him, just leans pathetically against the couch and tries to even out his breathing, but eventually the sounds behind him quieten and Mr. White comes back with tissues and a glass of water.

“Drink up,” he says and Jesse drinks it all. Then he wipes some tissues gently at Jesse's messy face like he's a kid, and Jesse lets him. “Skyler will be coming home soon. Can I - can we go to your house? To talk more?” Then, sounding worried, “U-Unless you didn't want to talk to me anymore, I understand. I'll just get you back to your car and -”

“It's okay. Come over.” Something about it sounds so hilarious that Jesse can't help but laugh. _Yeah sure, Mr. Devil who has fucking killed everyone I love, please come over and hug me some more._

Slowly he stands up, rubbing his face into his sleeve to try and pretend it wasn't red from crying, and Mr. White watches him with soft eyes.

“Can you manage to drive home okay? I'll take mine.”

Jesse nods shortly - “I'm not useless, okay?” “I didn't say you were.” - and wanders out the front door when Mr. White opens it for him. He steps out into a bland suburban street and feels a wash of incredulity. He drives home half believing he's dreaming.


	2. Fifty-Fifty

Mr. White's Aztek pulls in not long after he manages to find and dig some coffee out to put in the machine, feeling as though he’s wandering around like a zombie. Jesse watches him walk up to the front through the windows, meeting him at the door before he can knock.

They stand there awkwardly for a few moments, Mr. White's hand still raised in a fist in the air.

Slowly, he puts his hand down. “May I, uh, come in?” He coughs, turning away. “Sorry,” he manages while he coughs again.

There's an aching pang in Jesse's chest. The cancer. It's here. And that means Mr. White needs money. And that means… Jesse doesn't want to think about what all that means just yet. He steps back and jerks his head, motioning the other man inside.

They sit awkwardly at his kitchen table. Jesse's fingers itch to hug him again but his rational mind tells him not to. Reminds him who's sitting there. Makes him think of Andrea and Brock's photo. Jesse grits his teeth and sets his jaw and tries to focus on refiring up his hatred for Mr. White.

It gets harder and harder the longer he looks at the older man in front of him. He feels like all his insides got scraped out and there’s nothing left inside of him but Mr. White.

“So…” Mr. White begins, twiddling his thumbs and clearing his throat in the dense silence.

They continue to sit in silence until the coffee machine beeps. Mr. White gets up when Jesse doesn't move, just sits and stares at the table.

“Would you, uh… Would you like a coffee?”

Jesse shrugs.

He hears some cupboards open, the shuffling and clinking of mugs and cutlery. It feels almost nice. Like, domestic, and that's not a word he would have ever applied to their partnership. It's like he's little Red Riding Hood, sitting at the kitchen table with the big bad wolf fixing him a cup of coffee.

“Didn’t you gotta work today?” Out of nowhere he remembers that Mr. White must have had to go to school, but instead he’d been at home.

“Oh - I uh, actually phoned in. They’re getting a sub to cover for me for a bit. I needed some time to myself to figure out what was going on,” Mr. White says, pouring the coffee. “I’m having the next few days off. I was a bit of a mess when I woke up yesterday.”

“Yeah…” Jesse trails off. He’d been pretty rough off too, puking and thinking he’d lost his mind.

“How do you take yours?”

Jesse jolts out of reminiscence and remembers the coffee. “Uh… sugar.”

After a moment, a steaming mug is carefully placed in front of him.

“Thanks.”

“You're welcome."

Jesse wraps his hands around the warm mug. He opens his mouth to say something about the cancer, but instead he asks, “Did you tell them about Andrea and Brock?”

The words are out of his mouth before he can bite down on them to stop them from escaping. He’d thought about that for a long time after they’d brought him to Andrea’s house that night, wondering how they’d found out, how they’d known who she was to him. There was only one real answer.

Mr. White looks tired. He nods, eyes down at the table without meeting Jesse's.

His words from earlier echo back. “How _could you_ ?” Jesse shoots up from the table. He's too tired to cry, or shout, or punch. His voice just sounds raw, scraped by the steel wool lodged in his throat. “Hurting me, _fine_ , but them - they - they _killed her_ -”

Mr. White looks surprised, and then his face goes pale. “What? Andrea?”

“Because I tried to escape, so they…” Jesse didn't know he had anything left to cry out, but he manages to find a few more tears. “They killed her right in front of me. Said Brock was next if I tried again.”

The astonishment and then nausea on Mr. White’s face almost makes him believe that he didn’t tell them on purpose.

“I - you, when you were with Hank - before you called me and lured me to the desert, I went to Andrea’s house and got her to call you,” Mr. White explains, sounding winded and pained. “I guess Hank had confiscated your phone but they… I had brought them with me. To trap you. I didn’t know they would ever -” Mr. White shrugs helplessly, mouth moving silently, trying to find words. “I didn’t know.”

Jesse can feel himself start just fucking trembling with all the nightmares in his heart. He wants to fight against the warm arms reaching out and enveloping him but he can't. He _wants_ so desperately to be comforted, even if it is by the man who put him into that hole in the ground to begin with. Who built everything up around him just to destroy it.

He leans into the embrace and shudders, empty and spent, listening to the little “I'm sorry”s being whispered into his ear over and over, branding every little part of his brain. Mr. White settles him back down in his seat, tucks his head in between his neck and shoulder, and rocks them gently.

It’s dark out when he opens his eyes again, still wrapped in Mr. White’s arms. A hand is slowly rubbing up and down his back, and the other man’s head is bent down, resting on his own. He blinks a few times against the bland material of Mr. White’s jacket.

“Did I fall asleep?”

Mr. White makes a surprised noise and he shifts slightly against Jesse. “Yes, you did. I think you needed it, though, so I just…” Jesse feels the rubbing hand move off and make a small gesture. “I just held you. Sorry.”

Jesse pulls away, shivering when the heat of Mr. White’s body seeps out of him, leaving him cold down to his bones. “You need to go home right?” His voice still sounds raw like he’d been screaming all night.

Mr. White looks around. “I, ah, when you were asleep, I called and told Skyler I would… That I was going to be out tonight. So…” He waves his hands in a pacifying gesture and backtracks. “I can leave, if you want. I just…” He clears his throat. “Yeah, I’ll just go.”

_He’s so different_ , Jesse thinks. Not as deadly. Not as angry. It’s weirdly nice and nostalgic to see him be _just_ Mr. White again, and not Heisenberg, not some God awful amalgamation of the two. “You can stay.” Heat rises in his cheeks when Mr. White stares at him with a surprised expression. “I wanna talk more,” he continues stubbornly, daring Mr. White to walk away. He sweeps one hand in front of him. “I think we have like, a _lot_ to deal with here.”

As if just now realizing where he was, Mr. White looks around, huffing a disbelieving laugh. “You know, when I woke up yesterday, I thought I’d died. I don’t believe in an afterlife, you know, but this - I mean what else could it be?” One of his hands ruffles through his hair. “There’s nothing, no reason, and I mean absolutely none as to why we’re here right now. Again.” Mr. White spreads his empty hands out as if to emphasize _nothing_.

“So…” Jesse begins. “What then? Like, this is totally crazy, yo.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, holds it to Mr. White with a shaky hand. “I - I got calls from Emilio, man.”

Mr. White’s eyes flicker towards the grate that connects to the basement. Jesse’s eyes follow and it’s as though he can hear Krazy-8 down there, coughing, chained to a pillar and waiting to be murdered.

“Yes... When we, er, got here, to this point in time, it was the day after my fiftieth birthday. The day I got my diagnosis.” There’s something wistful and sad in his face and he trails off into silence for a minute.

Jesse’s about to say something when the guy shakes his head sharply and continues, “So, that means this is before we met. Before we started to cook together,” Mr. White says. Jesse nods. “Nothing has happened. No one has died, not even Emilio and Domingo. And I…” He trails off thoughtfully, looking down at himself, and Jesse knows he’s thinking about the cancer and chemo.

Jesse feels a burst of despair in his heart, winding him. “You _can’t_ ,” Jesse pleads. “Not anymore.”

Mr. White closes his eyes and changes topics. “After To’hajiilee, after I disappeared, I went to New Hampshire.” He barks out a mean laugh. “What a god awful place. Couldn’t talk to anyone. Couldn’t leave the little reservation I was on. And it was nothing but cold and snow for those six months. I was waiting there to die.”

Jesse wraps his arms around himself at that, feels oddly vulnerable hearing Mr. White talk so comfortably about death. Even when he’d been bleeding out from a gunshot wound, part of Jesse had believed that Mr. White would survive. The man was simply impossible to defeat, to kill. “What are you talking about?”

Mr. White doesn’t seem to pay any attention to him, and continues to reminisce. “I went into town to give myself up, but I saw something that brought me back to Albuquerque. Then I heard about the blue meth, and I knew you were still cooking.” Mr. White meets his eyes. “If I had known you were alive there, I would have come earlier. As it was, I went there to take back to settle my debts with my family, and then to die. But when I knew you were there, I had to go and settle things with Jack, too.”

Jesse’s heart clenches painfully again. The way Mr. White worded it makes him wonder if he actually cares about him… like, for real. Not as some joke, not some lie he’s cooked up, but honestly. Doubt creeps in as he hopes for that possibility. Maybe he was just pissed off at Jack for selling his recipe when it wasn't his to use.

He's not sure which of the two options is more probable between Mr. White caring or not, but he knows which one he wants to be true so badly that he even says, “I’ll help you.”

Mr. White laughs again, but it isn’t mean and bitter this time. He turns his body fully towards Jesse. “That’s kind of you son, but how?”

“I don’t know -” and he doesn’t, he barely has enough sense to take care of himself, and he still has both feet in the meth business with Emilio “- but we can figure it out. We don’t have to cook. Okay? Right? I’ll do anything, but I can’t go back to that again.”

Mr. White shakes his head slowly. “You’ll ‘do anything’. Haven’t you learned well enough that telling me you’ll do anything is a recipe for disaster?” He frowns, deep lines all over his face, and Jesse can’t help but feel like a scolded child. It's amazing how Mr. White can still do that, pull out his chemistry teacher mask and act like they’re back in school and he’s got a bad grade.

“You little imbecile,” he says, with warmth in his voice. “I’ve already decided I won’t do chemo. I’m going to die, one way or another, and I’m not letting you get dragged down with me again.”

Jesse screws his eyes shut against the sharp, brittle pain those words invite. “You can’t die,” he says in a small voice.

“I can. And I will. It’s better if I do, you _know_ that.”

“I don’t have anyone!” Jesse bursts out from the overwhelming feeling of loneliness building up in his chest.

“You can. You can go find Jane, or Andrea, or someone else. God,” Mr. White says, grabbing Jesse’s shoulders. “Go find Mike, _anyone,_ someone who hasn’t ruined your damn life! You are so young, so precious, you can do anything you want.” He shakes Jesse a little at that. “You don’t have to be alone. Okay? So forget about me and move on.” At that, his hands begin to slip away from Jesse’s shoulders.

“ _You owe me_.”

Mr. White’s hands stop moving, fingertips still connecting them together. “What’s that?”

Jesse’s shaking again. “You took everything from me. You think I can ever go back to Jane without thinking about how she looked, dead, covered in her own puke? Or Andrea with a bullet in her head? Or _Mike_ ? I don't even know what happened to him.” Jesse feels angry again, so angry he wants to scream, wants to really lay into the man in front of him but he just keeps shaking. “How fucking _dare_ you try and leave me too?” He stands up, steps towards Mr. White. “You. Owe. Me.”

Mr. White doesn’t say anything, and his poker face betrays nothing. He doesn’t step back, doesn’t flinch when Jesse gets into his space. Just tilts his head up slightly and stares him down.

“Find someone new.”

“No!” Jesse shouts, voice almost breaking, filled with a frenzied, bone-deep need to make him understand. “You're so far in my head - you and I, we - we're the only ones who know what we've done. What we've gone through. Gone through because of _you_ !” He slams a hand down on the table. “Everyone I have tried to love, you killed! I can’t even trust myself around anyone anymore, because I know they’ll just end up dead. I-I hate you so - so _much_ , but I fucking need you, okay?” Neither of them acknowledge the way Jesse's voice cracks over the last few words.

Mr. White gazes at him, lips thin and pressed together. He says nothing.

“ _Okay_?” He asks desperately.

‘Cause it’s true. He needs Mr. White. Part of him hates it, hates the longing, hates that he craves being near this fucking evil, awful man - but they had chosen each other a hundred times before, always blindly reached towards one another through blood and tears. And despite it all, even after everything, Mr. White had still taken a bullet for him. Maybe Mr. White doesn't really care about him, but he wants Jesse. Wanted him so badly he’d killed, poisoned, and lied to keep him even though it would’ve been so much easier to kill him.

How long had he dreamed of being wanted like that? To be needed by someone? He’d loved Jane so goddamn much, and Andrea and Brock too, but they didn’t need him. Not like Mr. White does.

And now it was within his grasp. Jesse isn’t an innocent anymore. He’s not naive anymore. This time he’s willingly choosing Mr. White with full, painful knowledge of the kind of person he was tying himself to. He can see Mr. White for who he really is.

There's nothing left of the lies between them.

One of Mr. White’s hands come up to gently touch the side of his face, at odds with the distant look on his face. “I don’t want to hurt you anymore, Jesse. And I will, if you stay with me. You know I will.”

“I don’t _care_! Fucking hurt me, if that’s what you want! Call me stupid, or worthless, or whatever! Beat the shit out of me if you want! Go ahead,” he invites, shaking with how angry he is, how scared and lonely and disgustingly needy he is.

“But I can’t - you can’t do this to me anymore.” He steps in again, right against Mr. White’s chest. “If you leave me alone, I’ll have nothing again. You can’t take everything away from me again.” He bows his head, tucks it under Mr. White’s chin in a barely conscious act of submission. “Fifty-fifty partners, right? Like before.”

They breath together for a few minutes, tied up in each other’s space, until slowly Mr. White reaches up and hugs him.

“Fifty-fifty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next we'll be switching to Walt's POV as we continue on! Thanks so much for all your comments and kudos <3


	3. Get 'Em Young

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walt handles the situation as well as he can and some buried truths are revealed.

Walter doesn’t know how he got here.

Well, he knows in the  _ literal _ sense - he woke up two years in the past (and that still threw him off balance every time it crossed his mind, feeling like vertigo in a dream where any second he expected to wake up kicking), puking as though he’d just gone through the radiation side of chemotherapy, seeing Skyler, pregnant with Holly, and Junior, and feeling as though he was losing his mind.

Skyler had called Carmen for him, worriedly requesting a few days off as he lay feverishly in bed, the side of his stomach hurting so badly he kept expecting to pull away his hand and see blood. He’d stumbled out of the house at one point when Skyler was out getting some cold medicine for him, needing to see how much of this death dream was real, and the pain had intensified so badly he’d collapsed. When he awoke, there he was, in the ambulance, driving to where he would get his cancer diagnosis. The same painting, the same mustard stain. He’d gotten home somehow on his own, and curled up into bed and cried until he fell asleep.

The next day he’d let Junior and Skyler leave before grabbing his keys and going out to his car with every intent to drive out into the desert until his car ran out of gas. No plan. Just a need to get away.

But then he’d seen Jesse.  _ His _ Jesse. Standing there in the street, looking so terribly young and scared. Nothing could have stopped him from hugging the boy right there in the street, saying soft words he didn’t even know he was possible of saying to Jesse, as accustomed to being sharp and unkind as he was. And it was about damn time, he supposes.

Then he and Jesse had embraced and talked and fought, going back to his home so that he could prevent Skyler from interrupting them, until finally he had promised to stay with the kid through the night. He’d set himself up on the couch, and slept restlessly.

But… How had he gotten to this point in his  _ life _ ? Jesse had wanted nothing to do with him one he’d discovered what he’d done to Brock. He’d tried to  _ destroy  _ him for what he’d done to the people he cared about, and yet last night, there he was, marrying himself to Walt and his destructive personality all over again.

It twists something deep inside Walt to the point of nauseating pain, to know he’d crushed Jesse and everything he loved so utterly, so perfectly that he’d come back to him again.

With a chill, he remembers the story Mike had told him about when he’d still been a beat cop.  _ No more half measures _ , and yet… Here they are. In a cycle, like the snake eating its own tail with Jesse as his own personal battered wife.

Hearing Jesse say that he didn't even care if Walt hurt him so long as he stayed, he'd wished so dearly that he could erase everything he’d ever done and said to the boy. He’d never been able to be honest with himself, let alone Jesse, about how deeply he cared for him, and now they’re here. Just waiting for one of them to destroy the other - no. Waiting for  _ him _ to destroy Jesse.

Fifty-fifty. What a ridiculous concept. Not even once, not even for a single goddamned second had they ever really been even in their partnership. It was only at the very end as he lay there in a pool of his own blood that had he finally acknowledged Jesse as an equal.

He has to find a way to cut Jesse clean - although that seemed to be what the boy feared more than anything. There’s no other option for them. He won’t try to fool himself or Jesse into thinking he can be the support that the kid wants him to be. Needs him to be.

The sun is up now, passing through the living room curtains and dancing on the dust motes in the air. Skyler had been suspicious and upset when he’d phoned her last night to tell her he was staying out - especially after the difficult day they’d had yesterday with Walt damn near losing his mind - and her suspicions probably weren’t assuaged by him speaking in hushed tones to avoid waking the young man sleeping against him. When he told her he was helping an old student who had reached out to him to try and get clean, she’d said, “Alright” and nothing more. He knew she didn’t buy it, but she didn’t have to.

In the depths of his heart he imagines a path that will lead towards a happy future for them and their kids. He still loves her deeply, his wife of so many long years and mother of his children. But he won’t hurt her anymore, either. Not this time. She doesn’t deserve to be chained to his secrets again.

Sighing, he gets up, ignoring the aching in his back. He isn’t going to sleep a wink more. Wandering back into the kitchen, he picks up the two untouched mugs full of cold, stale coffee and dumps them out in the sink, then he does the same with the coffee in the machine before washing them just to keep himself occupied.

He rummages around in the fridge, looking for anything to make breakfast out of and finds a small carton of chocolate milk, some slices of Kraft cheese, and a few other odds and ends that seems so utterly teenage boy he’s almost taken aback. The freezer has a tray of ice, and about a dozen frozen dinners. He can’t help but roll his eyes at them.

“Alright,” he says to the freezer. “Guess I’m going shopping.”

He looks up the stairs towards the bedroom Jesse had slunk off to last night while giving Walt hopeful eyes that he hadn’t been sure what they were exactly trying to say.

He wonders if he should leave a note, but as soon as the thought crosses his mind he catches the time on the microwave and dismisses it. It’s not even 8 o’clock in the morning. Somehow he sincerely doubts that Jesse would be up and about before he got back from the store. It had been an emotional night. Surely Jesse would be sleeping in.

Grabbing his jacket and keys, he quietly leaves.

The big box grocery store is just opening its doors as he pulls into the parking lot. He grabs a few bags worth of ingredients, every time he turns the corner in the store making him think of a different dish to make, wondering if Jesse even liked this or that.

It’s 9 when he gets back, hauling the heavy grocery bags and fumbling his car doors shut as he damn near coughs up a lung. He doesn’t manage to even get a step away from his vehicle before the front door of the house is flung open and Jesse is launching himself out of it and into Walt. Barely managing to keep a grip on the bags, he stumbles backwards into the Aztek’s side with Jesse latched firmly onto him. Walt gets the feeling he’d be climbing him like a squirrel up a tree if he could.

“Jesse -” he tries, attempting to slide away from the jittery kid.

“You said - you promised you weren’t going to leave, and then you  _ did _ and you didn’t tell me. I tried to call you but you didn’t answer, and I didn’t know if you were coming back or -”

“Jesse,” he repeats, louder this time. The kid looks up at him with wide, glistening eyes. He continues, softer, “Let’s go inside, hey? These bags are killing me, and I’m hungry.” Jesse looks down at the bags and grabs the handles. “Oh - thank you.” He lets go of the bags and leads the way back into Jesse’s home, letting Jesse walk quietly behind him.

“You should have said you were leaving,” Jesse grumbles.

Walt rolls his eyes heavenwards and cuts his annoyance down before answering. “I didn’t know you were awake, otherwise I would’ve said something.”

“I woke up when you started your car.” A beat of silence. “You didn’t answer when I called.” There’s a prickling note of accusation in his voice.

Walt pulls it out of his pocket and flips it open experimentally. “... It’s dead.” He shuts it and puts it back. “And you know, I wouldn’t have had to go anywhere if you had anything more nourishing than frozen cardboard.” It would be a cold day in Hell if he ever ate one of those pathetic microwave meals, that’s for sure.

“Says the guy who ate peanut butter sandwiches every day for like, ever.”

...He has to give that one to Jesse even though it’s a little irksome. “Fair enough.” He helps Jesse unload the bags and asks, “Is an omelette okay?”

Jesse purses his lips like he’s thinking really hard. “You’re really gonna make food?” As if to punctuate the thought, the kid’s stomach growls, making him jump in his skin and flush.

Walter almost can’t stop himself from grabbing Jesse and hugging him again for a few hours but he just manages. “Yep.”

“Then yeah, an omelette is like, really okay.”

He moves out of the way so Jesse can go by him and digs around in the cupboards again to find a frying pan. “You can go sit down,” Walt says, turning and sorting through the grocery bags for what he needs. There’s another brief sense of stomach-churning vertigo at the odd domesticity he’s fallen into so easily with the traumatised kid standing behind him.

He shakes his head and focuses on Jesse’s needs. If he wants Walt to play nice, he would play nice. Just keep his head down until he found a way out of Jesse’s life without damaging him, and he’d leave before he could scar the boy any more.

“I can help, y’know.” Jesse sounds adorably young and he can’t help but smile at it.

“You don’t have to, son.”

“Mr.  _ White _ .” If he didn’t know any better, he’d have thought the kid was on the verge of stomping his feet and pouting.

He sighs, briefly reminds himself to ‘play nice’, nods, and points to the ingredients he needs and Jesse hands them to him. They work like that, Walter directing him around the kitchen as needed. It’s nice. It makes him think back to the comparatively simpler days of cooking in the RV, where the most they had to worry about was breaking down in the desert. And a bit of gangbanger murder, but that’s besides the point. It really is nostalgic, working side-by-side with him, feeling their natural chemistry flaring up again as they settle into a working rhythm.

When they sit down with their breakfasts, Jesse’s mouth is tilted into a half smile and his eyes look less scared than before.

“Well, dig in,” he says as he gets up to the coffee machine’s perfectly timed beep, grabbing the two mugs he’d cleaned earlier.

Jesse’s plate gets cleaned off before he manages to sit back down.

Walter stares. “Wow.” He can’t think of anything else to say. The kid flushes and juts his jaw out defiantly. “You sure were hungry. When’s the last time you ate?” All he gets in response is a shrug. He sighs.

“I don’t know,” Jesse finally responds tersely. “Since I woke up. Here. I mean… Since we came back. I guess.”

Walt’s mouth forms an “o”, and he replaces Jesse’s plate with his.

“I’m not eating your food, dude.”

“Go ahead! I’ll make some more.” Walt is still hungry, sure, but in comparison… Well he can wait a minute or two.

Jesse looks distinctly uncomfortable when he says, “But you’re... You’re sick. I’m not gonna take food from a guy with… You know. Cancer.”

The way he says ‘cancer’, handling it like it’s a bomb - Jesse must think the instant he remembers he’s dying that he’ll jump immediately back into being Heisenberg and start his bloody empire again.

“You eat. I’ll cook some more, alright?” He doesn’t bother to wait for an answer, just gives a stern look that shuts the kid’s mouth.

After a brief period of working at the stove, Jesse brings his second emptied plate to Walt. “You’re like, really good at cooking, yo.” The kid pauses. “And I’m not talking about meth.”

He snorts. “I figured you weren’t talking about meth. And thanks. I appreciate that.” When he smiles awkwardly at Jesse, the kid avoids his gaze and starts idly putting groceries away while Walt works.

In the end, the kid eats four servings. Walt will need to get more eggs for next time.

They silently clean up together. Walter washes the dishes and Jesse dries and puts them away. It’s functional. Easy. Like they've been living together for years. Walt’s eyes drift towards Jesse and sees a pensive, brooding look on his face. Part of him wants to nudge Jesse, try and pry him open and see what he’s thinking about, but he doesn’t want to ruin the morning’s soft mood so he leaves it alone despite his curiosity.

He looks at the microwave’s clock. It’s past 10. He should contact Skyler soon, before she calls the cops on him for being a missing person. Or - God forbid - calls Hank. He sternly avoids acknowledging the churn of guilt and sorrow in his gut that flares up again.

“You mind if I use your phone?” Jesse jolts out of whatever reveries his head was stuck in and gives him a stunned look. Walter motions towards the landline. “Your phone. Mine died. I was to let Skyler know what I’m doing.”

Jesse shoots him a suspicious glare. “What…  _ are  _ you doing?"

“I told her that I was helping a previous student get clean. I hope that’s not a problem.”

The kid jitters a bit, picking at his nails, then looks up at him with an inscrutable expression. “When I got here, I had a teenth of meth in my pocket.”

He doesn’t exactly see the point of this information. What's Jesse fishing for? He settles for nodding slowly, waiting for more.

“I didn’t  _ use _ . I flushed it down the toilet.”

Walter considers that. He hadn’t seemed like he was tweaking when they’d been talking and by now Walt had a pretty good idea of when the kid was on or not. He’d been more emotional and touchy than usual, sure, but he’d just been through what was essentially hell on Earth so some allowances were in order.

“I see…” Walter trails off, watching Jesse’s face carefully. The kid’s still watching him with cagey eyes, and when Walt doesn’t say anything else, he frowns ( _ pouts _ ) and looks at the floor. Ah. Is that what he wants? Walt bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing at the huffy behaviour and instead he wraps an arm around him in a half hug and says, “I’m proud of you, son.”

Jesse sighs out a breath against his neck, angling into the stiff embrace. “I won’t use. As long as you don’t… Do that stuff anymore.”  _ Kill. Blackmail. Steal. Poison. Lie.  _ “I swear I won't, if you won’t.”

It almost sounds like Jesse’s comparing his meth addiction to Walt’s business tactics. Walter can’t bring himself to promise anything, so instead he pulls away and goes to the landline and dials his house. Jesse shuffles awkwardly behind him. After a few rings, Skyler picks up.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Sky.”

“Walt! Thank god, I was starting to get worried. Are you coming home? Where are you calling from? I tried calling you, but you didn’t pick up.”

Walter looks over his shoulder at Jesse. Thinks about the wire thin edge in his words.  _ You owe me  _ echoes in his head _. _ The kid’s gnawing at his thumb anxiously, staring back at him with blue eyes.  _ You promised you weren’t going to leave. _

“Ah, uh - no, I think…” Walt shakes his head to clear it, and turns to stare at the wall instead of Jesse. “My cell died, sorry about that Sky. Didn’t think ahead about grabbing a charger. The, uh, the old student I’m helping, he’s - you know. Better but I still don’t think he’s, um…” He rubs his forehead. What in the hell is he saying?

Her voice changes slightly. Has a sharper tone. “Where are you?”

Walt casts a brief prayer. “I’m at his house. The student. Jesse Pinkman, that’s the kid I’m helping,” Walt says defeatedly.

Skyler pauses. “I feel like I remember that name.”

“Yeah, I’m not surprised. He was a troublemaker. Guaranteed I complained about him to you.” He hears a soft huff of laughter behind him. “But, you know. Teacher’s duties. And I figured, hey, I was feeling a bit better so...”

“What, so first you get sick, really sick for the first time in God knows how long, and - and acting like you’ve seen a ghost, and now you’re off with some old student who’s an  _ addict _ ? And this is the first I’m hearing of it!”

“I know, Sky, and I’m sorry that these past few days have been hard, but believe me when I say that none of this has been intentional.”

Walt hears a scoff of incredulity from the other end of the line. “Well… When will you be back? Junior’s been asking, and you have work again tomorrow. Hell, you had work  _ today  _ at the carwash, did you sort it out with Bogdan? I know you’re sick but we can’t afford to -”

Walt pulls the phone away from his ear and contemplates just hanging up. He grits his teeth and puts the receiver back to his head and cuts Skyler off amidst her monologue, “Skyler, I’ll take care of it, alright? I’ll be home tonight.”

There’s a stretch of silence on the phone. “Alright.” And then she hangs up.

_ Alright _ , he thinks somewhat waspishly at the phone and then puts it back in the receiver.

“So…”

Walt pinches the bridge of his nose to stave off a headache.

“You’re staying like, all day?”

“Yes, it appears so. If you want me to go at any time, just… Say the word.”

Jesse’s mouth looks twisted like he’s trying hard not to smile and he just says, “Sweet.” He nods his head and says, “Sweet” again, mostly to himself.

They end up sitting on the couch that had served as Walt’s makeshift bed watching TV. Walt can’t help but feel distinctly as though he’s entered the Twilight Zone. Walt’s on one end, Jesse on the other. The kid keeps adjusting his position, shuffling around, curling up and slouching down, and looking over at Walt as though he doesn’t have peripheral vision and can't tell.

He’s on the verge of snapping at the kid to stop moving, but Jesse speaks first. “Why are you being so nice?”

“... What?”

“You keep, you know...” Jesse waves his hand vaguely in front of him, eyes flickering here and there but never landing on Walt.“You hugged me. And stayed ‘cause I asked. Made me breakfast. And then you stayed here today again even though you’ve got your family.”

Jesse shrugs lamely. “We… uh… We didn’t - I mean, things broke pretty bad between us. And it's, y’know, my fault about your brother-in-law… And it’s not like we were ever cutesy-cutesy before that, either. So, I...” Jesse clears his throat and when he talks again, it sounds tight and upset. “I know what I said, about you owing me, but you don’t have to do all that stuff. I’m not gonna make you act like we're friends or - or nothing.”

Walt turns in his seat to look at Jesse straight on. “You little idiot. Whatever happened back then is my fault.  _ I’m _ the one who didn’t ever know when to leave well enough alone. I’m the one who got Hank killed, who got you - you know.”

“And besides that,” Walt continues, “I always,  _ always _ considered you a part of my family too. I still do."

Jesse’s eyes stare firmly ahead at the TV mounted on the wall. “What?” he asks, voice almost breaking. Walt wants to shake the boy until he finally sees how much Walt cares about him, instead of always stubbornly pushing him away.

“Jesse, look at me.”

He does, eyes brimming.

Walter leans over, puts a hand on his shoulder. “You are my family.” He clamps down hard on his knee-jerk embarrassment of being emotionally vulnerable and forces himself to tell Jesse the truth. It’s what the kid deserves after so goddamn long.

“I... I love you, goddammit.” He hopes that sounds as honest as it is despite the gritted teeth - this secret kept so close to the vest that he’d barely ever acknowledged to himself. One that he’d always sort of hoped Jesse would figure out on his own, currently being dragged out of him like dragging barbed wire out of his throat. “I care about you. I - I’m bad at showing affection, God knows, but you have never been far from my heart. Not ever. I'm not asking for forgiveness, I know I don't deserve it. But if I am getting this chance to make that up to you then I will try,” he promises seriously.

Jesse lunges at him, clamping him into a hug. “Fuck you,” he says wetly against Walter’s cheek.

Walt responds by scooping him up and cradling him against his chest like he’s just a kid. Jesse doesn’t complain, merely holds on around his neck and curses Walter over and over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to Jesse's POV next chapter as our protagonists start to work out a rhythm to their lives. I wanted to get the old unresolved emotions touched on before we continue on, so I hope that you enjoyed!
> 
> I'd love to hear what you think about it, so please leave your kudos and comments ^-^


	4. Playing House with the Devil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was originally gonna get split into two chapters, but I didn't like the part in the middle where I cut it before. So enjoy!

Jesse gets the feeling that this tired ache in his eyes is going to be something he’s going to have to get used to, especially if Mr. White keeps dropping bombs on him.

The old jerk had left an hour ago after they’d made something quick for dinner, leaving Jesse alone again, replaying what happened a hundred times in his head.  _ I love you. _ It’s all so fucked up, what that guy would do for the people he loved. He’s caught between being happy and terrified with the weight of that confession on him.

Mr. White has done such seriously awful things in the name of love for his family. For  _ him _ . And when Jesse rejected that love, turned on him, Mr. White had ordered him dead.

The fact that Mr. White cares for him circles around in his head, the thought never stopping repeating itself like a scratched record skipping and never quite getting to the next line. That asshole Schrader had been right. All that shit that Mr. White had done was because he cared.

When they’d made breakfast earlier, he’d kept thinking about how nice it was to do something so fucking normal with someone again. And how the last two people he’d shared slow, happy mornings with had both died, thanks to the very same man he’d been helping cook  _ eggs _ .

“Psycho,” Jesse mutters bitterly, curling up on the couch where Mr. White had sat, wrapping his arms around himself and pretending that he was still there. “You’re such a freakin’ psycho.” But that doesn’t prevent Jesse from daydreaming about Mr. White always being there to make him stupid eggs, go shopping just because Jesse didn’t have food, hold him while he cries...

_ I love you. I care about you. _

He falls asleep on the couch, clustered in the warm memory.

He dreams of a phantom, a boogeyman, that hides in his shadow, watching his every step.

In the dream, Jesse wanders through a twisted maze of streets trying to find his way home, turning corner after corner and walking until his legs ache. His shadow tugs him this way and that, but eventually he finds a familiar street and heads down it. Like a moth to the flame he approaches a specific house on the street even as his shadow urges him in the opposite direction. It’s the small one-story home he’d started renting for Andrea - and she’s  _ there _ , waiting for him.

His heart feels like it’s going to burst from how fucking happy he is to see her, alive and looking just as beautiful as ever. She’s standing in the sun on the porch, golden rays playing over her, basking her in the warmth. She turns and they meet eyes. He can’t stop smiling.

Andrea looks so happy to see him too, bounds towards him excitedly, but then accidentally steps into his shadow and like a string cut from a puppet, she collapses, blood pouring from her head.

Jesse stares down at Andrea’s body in horror, seeing it melt away into his shadow. Stunned, he stumbles up the walkway to the home to find Brock and opens the door, stepping into a sunny, yellow bedroom. It’s his bedroom from the duplex he’d stayed in after his parents had kicked him out of Aunt Ginny’s house.

He looks down at the bed on the ground, and his shadow spreads across it. Vomit seeps up where the shadow touches, pooling in the sheets, and he sees Jane lying there so still and pale.

He can’t move, and a voice echoes around his head as his shadow wraps around him, whispering, “I love you.”

He wakes up sweating and shaking.

_ The phone is ringing _ , is the first thing that crosses his mind when he comes back to his senses.  _ Ring ring ring _ . The sun stretches across him, and he curls up in the bright warmth, hiding away from the cooling sweat on his back that remains as evidence of his nightmare.

Just then, the compound feels so very far away and he stays there, relishing it. Eventually the ringing stops, and he hears his answering machine go off.

“Yo 148, 3-to-the-3-to-the-6-to-the-9. Representin' the ABQ. What up, biatch? Leave it at the tone!”

Jesse feels an odd twinge of nostalgia when he hears it. What a relic. It sounds like it’s coming from a stranger, someone Jesse doesn’t know anymore.

“Uh, hello, Jesse -”

He's up like a shot off the couch, stumbling over the ends of his baggy pants and falling on his face, teeth clicking together.

“I hope I'm not disturbing you. Just… Wanted to check in. Make sure you were doing alright.”

Jesse shoots up and charges into the kitchen, sliding to a stop and smacking his hip into the table.

“I was wanting to ask if -”

He yanks the receiver off the holder. “Mr. White!”

“ - Jesse?” Mr. White sounds surprised. “Did I wake you?”

Jesse shrugs nonchalantly, feigning despite the fact Mr. White can't see him. “Oh, nah.” He clears his throat slightly away from the receiver to get the sleepy grogginess out of his voice. “Definitely not, yo.”

“Alright...” the voice on the other end of the phones drags out drily. “Anyways, I wanted to ask you if you wanted me to come by tonight. Um. O-Only if you wanted me to, understand - I’m not forcing you.”

Jesse's hand clenches so hard around the receiver the plastic creaks.

“... If… If you don't want me to then -”

“No!” Jesse shouts. “I mean, yes. Yeah. Come by. Totally.”

“Are you sure?”

“Dude, since we’ve known each other, this is like… the  _ most _ you have ever asked me what I want. Are you sick or something?,” Jesse halfway jokes, catching himself drawing shapes on the table with his finger like a smitten teenage girl.

There's a heavy silence and Jesse’s stomach drops through the floor. Did he fuck up? When Mr. White still doesn’t say anything, he knows he fucked it up - what, he doesn’t know exactly, but... He should’ve just let it go, but he had to go and look the gift horse in the mouth and now he’s  _ - _

“Jesse…” He almost feels himself tear up in relief when Mr. White finally starts talking to him, voice soft. “I wasn't kidding around when I said I wanted to make it up to you. Maybe it's -” Mr. White huffs a laugh and continues in a self-deprecating tone, “Maybe it's thanks to feeling myself quite literally on the verge of death, but I want to make things right. I want to do right by you.”

The open kindness in Mr. White’s voice are hooks pulling open his ribs, uncovering his insides that are nothing but a big, gooey, disgusting, pulsating wound that Mr. White keeps touching, his words like little kisses that make it feel better, like a father kisses the scrapes of a child. He's abruptly sick to his stomach. How long has he been waiting for Mr. White to just be  _ nice _ to him? How much horrible shit has he gone through for this man, just to be acknowledged like this?

Part of him, a large part, is waiting for the other shoe to drop.  _ I will hurt you again. You know I will. _ … and Jesse knows he'll stay again, come back to Mr. White again, over and over and over. Because now… Now he knows that Mr. White loves him. That Mr. White wants him. Needs him. Cares for him.

After Drew Sharp, he’d tried escaping - tried getting out of the business and after some cruel words Mr. White had let him for awhile. After he’d discovered the truth about Brock, he’d promised to destroy the man but Mr. White had overcome him, as he always does. After the truth of Jane, he tried to kill the last vestiges of his heart that loved Mr. White, but Mr. White had become so deeply entrenched in his soul he never quite managed it.

His six months in the compound, sitting in the dark. Being hurt. Being scared. Wishing he was dead. It was because of Mr. White, and after it all, he’d still put the gun down. The man had done such evil things, but he’d always promised it was for a good cause, and he  _ loves Jesse _ . It almost feels like that’s all that matters.

For a moment that seems to stretch on forever, Jesse chases himself in circles trying to resolve the ugly mess in his chest that all seemed to ooze out from the core of him that was dedicated to Mr. White.

“Jesse, you there?”

“Yeah,” Jesse responds numbly. His throat is so dry it clicks when he swallows. “Yeah I get you. I want you to come over. Seriously.” He licks his lips and takes the plunge. “I wasn't kidding either, yo. You're all I've got. It kinda sucks, 'cause you… You've fucked me up so bad you don't even know.” He hears Mr. White take a sharp breath on the other end of the line. “But I don't want to be angry anymore… I just want -” The laugh that forces its way out of his throat sounds hysterical even to his own ears. “It's so fucked up that I still want you around, no matter what you did. That’s what those six months did to me. That’s what you fuckin’ did to me.”

“I'm sorry, Jesse. I -”

“Don't be sorry, bitch,” Jesse snaps, cutting him off. “Just… Just come by. Okay?”

“Okay.”

They sit there in silence for a while. Jesse starts to count Mr. White's breaths, each one slow and steady as though he's forcing himself to maintain that pace.

“I need to go now, Jesse. I'll be by sometime around dinner. I'll make some pasta, how does that sound?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

“Alright then. Goodbye.”

“Wait!”

Mr. White pauses. “Yes?”

Jesse's face flushes. He can physically  _ feel _ the heat rising in his face, making his ears burn. He opens his mouth but he can't make the words quite come out. “I - I, uh. I wanted, uh.” He grinds the heel of his palm into his forehead so hard it hurts. “N-Nevermind. It's nothing.”

There's a thoughtful hum on the other end of the line, and then Mr. White's smug voice, “If you're sure. Goodbye, Jesse. I love you.” And there's a click, cutting the line before he can panic and wonder if he should say it back or not too - because he hasn’t, of course, doesn’t know if he'll ever be ready to reveal that tender, aching spot to Mr. White.

Jesse stands there listening to dead air for a solid chunk of time. He only notices he's smiling when his face starts to hurt. When the other shoe  _ does  _ finally drop, and Mr. White hurts him again, he'll have this. At the very least, he'll have this.

There's not much for him to do during the waiting period between the phone call and dinner. He had begun to idly clean his room and found drugs hidden in just about every nook and cranny which had put a screeching stop to that venture. He avoids looking at the meth that was all squirreled away - he wants to use so badly he starts feeling itchy all over, but he promised Mr. White and so he doesn't. There's so much tied up in his desire to not piss Mr. White off and keep everything between them calm and comfortable that he shrugs it off and ignores the mounting tension running along his spine.

He’s not totally sure at first why he wants to use so bad - his cravings had died down after a few months in the compound, and honestly he felt sick just  _ looking _ at meth now. But then as he looks down at himself, he realizes that he hasn’t gone through those dry months. He’s back at square one, with his body wanting it so badly it almost hurts.

Keeping focus on the sincere “I love you” Mr. White had said right into his ear over the phone, he actually does manage to toss the weed, and clusters his bongs and pipes aside to throw out later.

He eats some chips and watches TV, sitting in the spot Mr. White had before. When that gets boring he decides to play some video games, sorting through them until he finds one, unopened, that doesn’t have a gun on the cover. He can’t believe he even has this - one of his friends must have gotten it for him for April fools or some shit, he guesses, because he “cooks”.

The day drags on and he messes around in Cooking Mama: Cook Off for what feels like ever. Part of him wonders what it would be like to get Mr. White to play it and he doesn’t shake that oddly hilarious thought for the better part of the afternoon.

Eventually as the day starts blending into evening and he's mastered a handful of Cooking Mama recipes, he does hear the knock on his door. His mouth curls into a smile and his heart feels like it's being strangled a little bit - God help him, he really is turning into a teenage girl. He jumps off the couch, runs to the door, and flings it open.

“Yo, Mr. W-” he cuts himself off. His smile drops off his face faster than lightning. “... Badger _?” _

“Uh, hey,” Badger greets awkwardly, then jokingly to lighten the mood, “You don't gotta sound so disappointed. Expecting someone else, I guess?”

Jesse looks behind his friend and sees Skinny Pete and - his stomach churns like he'd just jumped off a bridge - Combo. He figures dimly that he should be relieved, happy, but all he wants is to puke his guts out and then cry but he just grits his teeth and turns his eyes back to Badger.

“Sorry, man, yeah, I was um… Definitely expecting someone else,” he says through a clenched jaw, and leans against the doorway, and then awkwardly, “So, like, what're you guys doing here?”

All three of them start talking at the same time. “We heard Emilio got picked up, man -” “How did you get away?” “We totally thought you got arrested!” “Did you manage to grab any crystal before -” “You didn’t answer any of our  _ texts, _ yo -”

He closes the door. After a moment, he pulls himself back together and opens the door again.

Skinny Pete pats his arm. “Yo, are you okay?"

Jesse chews on the inside of his cheek and keeps his eyes down so he doesn't look at Combo. “Uh… Yeah. I'm good. I just - uh. You know.” He shrugs a shoulder and makes a vague gesture.

Badger clears his throat. “Yeah. Cool. So, anyways, did you?”

“Did I… What?”

The three of them all give each other secret grins and nod at him. Badger even wiggles his eyebrows. “You know, man,” Badger stage-whispers, leaning in. “Did you grab any crystal?”

He chews the inside of his mouth. It would be kinda nice to have some company, but how would he deal with it when Mr. White showed up? And they were expecting him to smoke - but that was one of the last things on his list to do. He can only imagine what Mr. White would say if he showed up and these three were here.  _ Didn't you say you wouldn't use? I guess I shouldn't have trusted the word of a junkie. _

He flinches. It's not worth risking using, and it's definitely not worth risking pissing Mr. White off. “Nope, no crystal. Sorry.”

Skinny Pete smacks Badger and Combo. “Man, I  _ told _ you guys.” They punch him back and tell him to shut up.

Jesse rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he drags out. “Sucks you guys came out here for nothing, but, uh... “ He motions as if to say “you can leave now”.

They don’t pick up the hint. Combo pipes up from the back, “That sucks, dog, but it’s chill. I brought some weed.” He pulls out a bag with some in it and wiggles it enticingly. “You can pay me back later.”

It’s getting harder and harder to not snap. He hadn’t even gone to Combo’s funeral, too busy smoking himself into oblivion, and here he fucking was, offering some  _ weed _ for God’s sake.

He’s taking a shaky breath and figuring out what to say without barfing all over them when the shitty, old Aztek pulls cleanly into his driveway.

Badger looks at it, then back at him with a dopey but incredulous look in his face. “That who you’re waiting for?”

Mr. White gets slowly out of the vehicle. He doesn’t look at Jesse, just stares at the three of his uninvited guests with cold, hard eyes, the green of them glittering sharply behind his thin wire-frame glasses.

Jesse's skin prickles and shivers, like a bucket of ice water just got dumped on his head.

“Excuse me,” Heisenberg says, tone sounding forcedly neutral.

Skinny Pete awkwardly waves at him and whispers out of the corner of his mouth, “Who is this lame old guy, man?”

_ Lame? _ Jesse thinks hysterically. Mr. White still looks all the part of a chemistry teacher, drab olive jacket over a plain blue button up, khaki slacks and loafers, wire glasses and that stupid fucking moustache - but in this moment, with his eyes looking so dangerous, he’d rather take a round or two with Jack's entire gang than be alone in a room with Heisenberg.

Heisenberg is halfway up to the door now, one hand held loosely in his pants’ pocket and the other twirling his keys idly around his pointer finger, and Jesse needs to hurry up and figure out a way to get his friends away from his house  _ right fucking now _ . Heisenberg still hasn’t met eyes with Jesse and it’s getting a little  _ really _ hard to breathe.

He’s brought back to the compound then, all of a sudden, feels the shackles around his wrists and stomach. Mr. White’s pinned him down, he’s got his keys in his hand and he presses a button on them and then bullets are everywhere -  _ blood  _ everywhere - sawing the men in half -

“Jesse,” Heisenberg says in a stern voice that jolts Jesse back to the present. His hands are on his keys. Jesse can’t fucking see straight; he can’t talk, can’t move. All he can see is the key fob in his hand and his eyes run red with blood.

“If you were having guests over you should have said and I’d have rescheduled.” When he finally does look at Jesse his eyes are dark, and that’s all it takes to snap Jesse sharply out of his frozen terror.

“No, we’re all good, they were just leaving.” His voice sounds shrill to his own ears, but when he looks at his three friends, they all seem to be sniggering and pointing not-so subtly at Heisenberg. “ _ Right _ , guys?”

Combo and Skinny look like they’re on the verge of laughing and Badger’s shooting him a sorta concerned side-eye.

Jesse wants to shake them until they realize that they’re three feet away from the devil himself, but they all seem to collectively shrug and begin wandering away from the door and across the lawn. He hears Badger say disbelievingly, “Did you  _ see _ that?” and the other two just laugh.

Heisenberg doesn’t even watch them leave. Just stares at Jesse with those hard eyes, and he walks slowly in without breaking his stare as Jesse backs away from the door. Part of him wishes he had a gun, just to pretend he had a sliver of power although he knows that it would be about as useful as a stuffed animal in front of a bear.

When Heisenberg closes the door softly behind him, clicking it into place, Jesse jumps like a gunshot just went off.

“Mr. White, I swear they didn’t come in and I didn’t smoke up or do any lines of crystal or nothing,” Jesse babbles, trying to cut him off at the pass. Mr. White can't think he fucked up, he just  _ can't. _ Jesse needs him to know that he didn't break his promise, and he needs Mr. White to stop looking at him like he had in To'hajiilee. “They showed up like, literally a minute before you got here, okay? I  _ swear _ -”

Heisenberg tilts his head and cuts a hand through the air and that’s enough to shut Jesse up. Every muscle in his body feels like it's seizing up, locking his jaw and freezing him in place.

The older man closes his eyes and breaths slowly for a minute or so, and when he opens them back up, the harsh lines of his face have eased.

“Jesse, I believe you,” Mr. White says. He isn't proud that he almost collapses from the delirious sense of relief flooding through him like honeyed gold, knees weak from it.

“I’ll admit, I was a little upset when I saw them here. I mean for the love of…” Mr. White puts a palm against his own forehead, cradling it like he has a headache from the pure stupidity of what he’d seen. “One of them was waving a bag of weed around right there, out in the open! But if you say they didn’t come in and you didn’t use, I believe you.”

The tight tension in his chest unwinds more, lightening up to something so airy and free he almost feels like floating up to the ceiling. Mr. White believes him.

Mr. White smiles wryly and asks, “I suppose since you’re still holding up your end, that means I’m still not allowed to kill anyone or cook meth, right?”

The airy, dopey feeling vanishes leaving Jesse absolutely floored, stomach dropping to about the centre of the Earth for all of five seconds before he notices Mr. White is quietly laughing to himself.

“Yo… What the fuck?” Jesse can’t help but laugh in disbelief. “That’s  _ such _ a fucked up thing to joke about.”

Mr. White shrugs, one corner of his mouth still tilted up. “You seemed to think it was funny too.”

He grins at him and rolls his head towards his kitchen. “Whatever, you have definitely gotta make it up to me ‘cause you were seriously acting scary there for a minute. And I’m like, starving.”

Mr. White shrugs off his jacket and shoes and follows Jesse into the kitchen where they begin pulling out the fixings for spaghetti. He's been craving these stupid fucking noodles all day since Mr. White had mentioned it and he's finally getting what he's waited for.

“I was acting scary?” the man asks, after a few minutes of silence.

Jesse can’t help but give him a cutting look. “Yeah, no shit. You looked like you wanted to murder them and then me.” He curls his tongue around his teeth and contemplates his next few words before spitting them out, “Believe me when I say I know how that looks on you.”

Mr. White’s face shuts down and he doesn’t talk for the rest of dinner, only inclining his head in recognition when Jesse talks, acknowledging him briefly and curtly when Jesse compliments his cooking skills again - and Jesse is definitely complimenting him to try and get him to talk but also because, like, the dude’s cooking seriously  _ is _ amazing. Iron Chef indeed.

Eventually though he gives up and resigns himself to eating and cleaning up in a strained, awkward silence while Mr. White sulks, or whatever it is he’s doing. The dude has always been so oddly sensitive about the stupidest things and if Jesse has learned a damn thing over his partnership with him it's that waiting it out is easier than getting him to talk before he's ready.

He pulls out two beers and brings them over to his couch, grabbing the remote and switching to a random channel. Mr. White follows after a moment, sits where he did before, and doesn’t even comment on the mess of junk food wrappers Jesse had left lying around from his boring day.

It sucks.

Some sort of action movie with a lot of guns and blood starts playing. He withstands it for all of five minutes before he switches around, settling on the History Channel which is playing a documentary on some old Chinese emperor. There’s no shooting, no explicit, loud violence. It’s nice. Kinda boring, but nice.

His legs get antsy, sitting there, so he bounces them idly for a few minutes. When he gets tired of it, he brings them up against is chest and rests his chin on his knees, but then his back starts to twinge so he stretches them out and leans back into the sofa. He jostles the couch as he curls up against the arm of it, twisting and turning to try and find the perfect spot. The annoyance from the other end of the couch is almost palpable.

_ Ignore me now, _ he thinks victoriously. He absolutely doesn't think about why he wants Mr. White to pay attention to him so badly, but he’ll make Mr. White break the silence one way or another even if it means -

“I thought you watched Ice Road Truckers.”

He jumps from the sudden breach of quiet tension between the two of them. He hadn’t been expecting such a calm question. “What?” he responds dumbly.

Mr. White makes a vague motion at the TV, still not looking at Jesse. “Ice Road Truckers. You said you watched it.”

_ What? _ Jesse wants to ask again but doesn’t. He feels like he vaguely remembers an awkward conversation about it sometime before. “Uh… Yeah I do. But I dunno if it’s on right now. And it’s not like that’s the  _ only _ thing I watch, yo.”

Mr. White turns to him with a terse slant to his mouth. “What I’m trying to say is, if you’re bored, find something better to watch. You’re really getting under my skin with all this moving around.”

The urge to stick his tongue out is almost unbearable, but he just manages. He pretends to think and then responds as obnoxiously as possible, “Well,  _ so-rry _ , I’m just trying to get comfortable.”  _ And annoy you. One point to me! _ Mr. White can't ignore him anymore. He's won.

Mr. White turns his head back in front, and he starts doing that measured breath thing again, tapping his finger against his leg rhythmically. Jesse can see the muscles in his jaw clenching and he wonders if maybe he’s pushing too hard, if maybe Mr. White is going to lose his temper and what will happen if he does. Jesse shivers.

For the next few minutes he really does try to sit still. Really, he does. But then his legs start up with anxious energy again and he hears a sharp exhale from the opposite side of the couch.

“I wonder if maybe I should head out,” Mr. White says while standing up, mostly full bottle of beer still in hand.

“What?” Jesse whines, thumb already picking at his own bottle’s label in a burst of anxiety. He doesn’t want to be alone. “Already?”

Mr. White purses his lips. “I… I think that maybe I’m a little too tense right now. I might, ah, get ‘scary’ again if you...” His eyes flicker down to Jesse’s legs which are still bouncing, and he shakes his head. “That’s not your fault. I’m just stressed.” He smiles tightly and apologetically at Jesse and it feels like a punch to the gut.

“No way,” Jesse complains. “I’m sorry, don’t go. I promise I’ll like, sit still. For real, yo.” There’s a tilt to his voice that makes him feel like he’s a little kid asking to stay up just a little longer, immaturely promising to behave.

Mr. White hesitates.

Jesse reaches out and grabs Mr. White’s forearm. “Seriously. I’ll stop being annoying, I just… I don’t think -”  _ I don’t think it’s a good idea you leave me alone right now because the main thing stopping me from using earlier was knowing you were gonna be here and I need you right now.  _ He doesn’t say that but it must get across to Mr. White somehow, telepathically or something, because he’s sitting down again slowly.

“Alright.”

They turn back to the TV as it starts talking about that old emperor’s like, bajillion wives. Jesse bites the inside of his cheek raw to stop himself from fidgeting, and picks the label clean off, then starts picking at the skin around his nails until one of them bleeds.

“Jesse,” Mr. White sighs.

He sets his jaw resolutely against the hot tears he begins to feel crawling up the backs of his eyes. When he sneaks a side glance at Mr. White, the man’s got one arm thrown over the back of the couch and the other is cradling the beer bottle against his forehead as if he’s trying to literally cool himself off before he loses his temper.

Without sparing a second thought and trying to not lose his nerve, Jesse scoots over and curls up into the open spot at Mr. White’s side.

Firmly Jesse tells himself that he doesn't have this sudden, insane desire to be held by the man again. And he certainly doesn't have this flare of insecurity in his stomach burning him up inside, needing to be soothed by Mr. White. He doesn't.

He feels Mr. White twitch in surprise, and then after a moment his arm comes down and wraps around Jesse’s shoulders. They sit in silence for awhile, Jesse snuggled into his side and trying not to think about how disgustingly nice and safe he feels with the weight of Mr. White’s arm keeping him pressed there.

“All better?” Mr. White asks.

Jesse nods, and tries not to fall asleep in the warmth, counting Mr. White’s breathing and only halfway listening to the end of the program.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like really symbolic dreams, if you can't tell. I hope that the scene with Jesse's friends makes a little bit of sense - I had some trouble writing them. I very much appreciate all your comments and kudos <3


	5. Headaches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to Walt's POV for this chapter! I have so many issues with tenses, I hope it's all clear and readable -_-; Enjoy!

Walt leaves later than he expected to. It’s dark out by the time he gets home, having finally managed to pull Jesse off of him despite the sleepy complaints and grabby hands. When he gets to his front door, he determinedly tries not to feel like a naughty teenager that stayed out past his curfew, and goes inside.

He’s almost surprised when Skyler isn’t sitting there ominously, with one lamp dramatically turned on, asking, “Where were you?” Instead he finds a cold plate of dinner waiting for him on the table, which he heats up and eats guiltily.

There’s a pain in his forehead starting to build up again, the stress of everything finally falling back onto his shoulders after the surprisingly nice and quiet evening he’d spent with Jesse faded into memory.

He hadn’t meant to get angry when he’d seen Jesse’s “friends” standing outside his house - and he still couldn’t quite reconcile the fact Jesse cared about them when, to him, all they are is potential employees or simply junkie annoyances - but then he’d seen the large one, the one who’d died, waving that bag of weed out in the open… A cold rage had erupted in his chest. He’d watched those three idiots stifle laughter and pissing him off even more, and when his eyes had finally clicked over to Jesse, the kid had looked thunderstruck. Wide eyes, trembling lower lip, white knuckling on the sides of the door frame.

Every step that the three took away from Jesse was another clamp pressing back down on the fury in his chest, until finally, inside, away from bad influences with the door firmly shut, he’d managed to get a grip on himself and shut his anger away again, twisting a key on a lock that kept his unchecked emotions from burning away any more.

He’d thought it had died in the mountains, in the snow, with all that white and cold washing that sickening fire in his gut away, but apparently not.

And then Jesse had told him he’d been scared. Scared of Walt. Jesse’d told him he’d looked at Jesse with a murderer’s eyes.

He silently promised himself all dinner that he’d walk away, cut it all off with Jesse, but the kid had simply pulled out some beers and went to the couch, blatantly expecting Walt to follow suite and he did. He hadn't had the resolve to say no. With Jesse he never did.

The program they’d been watching was some kind of historical documentary, one that didn’t interest him in the slightest so he’d blanked it out entirely, too focused on his mind buzzing and buzzing with thoughts and ill-advised plans. He still hadn’t told Skyler about his cancer, and she wasn’t happy with him for disappearing to his suffering ex-student’s home  _ again _ when he’d come home from school that day but she’d relented when Junior began praising Walt for helping someone in need.

And to top things off, like the bleeding cherry on top of the shit sundae, his coughing is getting worse all the time. Chemo needs to start as soon as possible if he wants to keep living - which, honestly, he doesn't, but there is nothing to leave to Skyler and the kids, and he knows that Jesse wants him alive for whatever reason. So he must, one way or another, find a way to survive at least until he can talk some sense into Jesse and secure a future for his children.

Earlier that day, during an empty block of school, he’d phoned his resignation in to Bogdan who had replied sharply that two days of no-call, no-show meant he’d been fired anyways. It took everything inside of Walt to bite down on the nasty words bubbling in his throat, instead pleasantly bidding him goodbye while thinking about how delicious the pop had been that he’d bought with Bogdan’s framed dollar.

It had been nice, finalizing his freedom from the car wash - and after all, even with the shitty second job he didn’t stand a chance with the chemo costs. He’s already one foot in the grave.

And then sitting there on the couch, he’d closed his eyes, and imagined Jesse’s frightened face. It wasn’t worth living. What would he do? Jesse had made a promise for him, but God, it would be so easy to just cook and sell it to a distributor somehow. It was something he was good at, no doubt, but he had to decide if it was worth it.

With his sharp, bitter pride he knew that he couldn’t bow his head and ask for Gretchen and Elliot’s help. Every time he considered it he remembered their press conference, fueling a bone deep pit of hatred so hot that he wanted to break something.

Where did that leave him? He was shoved, jammed right in between a rock and a hard place, with Jesse’s desperation for him to live and his family’s future to secure, and no way to do it.

The headache from his never ending thoughts and internal arguments lasted all damn day, spiking more and more as he pondered his way out, and it exploded into a near migraine sitting on the couch with Jesse, poor, damaged Jesse, sitting so closely.

And then he’d noticed the jittering on the other side of the couch.

The sharp pain in his forehead was aggravated by every little movement Jesse made. The old Walt in him had wanted to smack the kid right across the head, shout at him, and the instant he nearly did he’d gotten up to leave and would have if Jesse hadn’t begged him to stay. But the kid hadn’t calmed down no matter how hard he tried. Even the cold perspiration from the beer bottle couldn’t soothe the stabbing point of his headache.

He’d been on the verge of leaving again when Jesse had abruptly tucked himself into Walt’s side as if he belonged there.

It was... nice. Some part of him liked holding someone safely against his side, perhaps instilled from so many years of cuddling with Skyler, and it seemed to him that the closer he held Jesse, the less shaky the boy was. So he’d held the boy tightly, and left far later than he should have.

“Hey,” says a soft voice behind him, shaking him out of his thoughts and back to the present.

Skyler walks out of the darkness of the hallway and greets him with a small, tired smile, arms wrapped around herself and holding her robe closed over the swell of her stomach.

“Hey yourself,” Walt smiles. Tries not to think of her tear stained face that he had seen so many times before the end. His hand pangs with a phantom cut and he stretches it out to ease the ache.

“So, how was he?” Skyler asks, lifting a brow and taking a seat at the other end of the table. Almost instinctively, they reach out and lace their fingers together. His phantom cut hurts more sharply, but he doesn't let go.

Walt considers the question. “When I got there, some friends of his had shown up.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “With  _ weed _ .”

Predictably, she looks shocked. “Don’t they know he’s trying to get clean?”

Walt shakes his head. “Somehow I doubt they do, or even if they did they most likely wouldn’t care. You know how junkies are.” He feels very distantly bad about talking about Jesse’s friends like this, mostly because it prickles at his ingrained desire not to speak ill of the dead, but he can’t find it in himself to really care.

Skyler’s eyes soften in the same way they do when Junior tells them he wants to adopt a dog and she has to say no, and rubs her thumb against the back of his hand so softly. “I’m sorry I was a little…” She looks down at their intertwined hands, angling them to see his wedding band. “Well, I guess that I didn’t expect you to suddenly start helping a student from... how many years ago? It just didn’t seem like something you’d do.” She tilts her head, her long hair brushing over her shoulders, and smiles apologetically. “But I am proud of you. And I can tell this is important to you. Okay? So take as much time as you need with him.”

Walt gets the intense urge to get up and leave, just as he did with Jesse. He doesn’t deserve to be looked at with such kindness from the woman he had so deeply hurt before. Part of him is glad she doesn’t remember his crimes, the crimes he technically hasn’t committed yet, but part of him wishes that the Skyler who knew the real him was sitting there. So that he could leave, walk out of this house. So that she would let him.

Instead, she holds his hand and leads him to bed and he sleeps fitfully next to her.

_ What am I going to do? _ is the only thought that buzzes in his head for the rest of the night.

He passes through the next day at school in a trance. The faces of the students blur together and he can’t quite focus on his lessons. Eventually he gives them study periods and sits at his desk, pondering and then discarding every plan he can think of to get money for chemo. It all circles back to cooking.

What if he could get introduced to Gus? Maybe he could get offered that three month deal, work it with Gale, and then retire from the business permanently. Three million was more than enough. He could get chemo, give half to Jesse and convince him to leave - to go anywhere he wanted as long as it was far away from Walt as possible, and in a year and a half when the cancer came back, he’d still have more than enough to leave Skyler and the kids to support them.

He’d more likely than not need to get supplies together in order to create a sample for Gus and Gale to discuss, and to do so he would need to find methylamine in order to create his iconic blue product, but it’s doable. Dangerous, perhaps, and more than a little risky, but doable.

No Mike. No Todd. No Lydia. And absolutely no Jesse.

He’s palming the key to the chemistry storeroom, running silently through the list of items he’d need to steal when he hears a knock on the door, and upon glancing over, he sees Carmen standing there with a friendly smile. “Hey, Walt.”

A jolt of embarrassment runs through him and he starts shuffling papers on his desk to avoid looking at her. “Ahh, uh, h-hello, Carmen!” Knocking over his pen holder intentionally, he takes the chance to hide behind his desk for a moment. “What can I help you with?”

The click of heels precedes her, the clacks pausing in front of his desk. “Walt, are you… doing alright? It’s pretty rare for you to need time of because of illness.”

He shuffles the pens around before picking himself back up, anything to avoid having to look at her. “I - uh - I feel just fine! Must have just been a little bug from a student, or maybe something I ate.” He forces a laugh and puts his desk back in order.

The curl of her mouth speaks volumes. He can tell she’s trying to be patient and understanding while not understanding why her staff member is acting like an oaf. “Just wanted to make sure.” She touches his hand briefly. “You can confide in me if you need to, Walt,” Carmen promises.

Walt really does think she’s an amazing woman, perfectly suited to the school environment. Her uncanny ability to know when something is wrong always strikes him as almost preternatural, but he doesn’t have anything to confide in her- or at least anything without being put into a loony bin.  _ “Yes, actually Carmen, I’ve just come back two years into the past after creating a meth empire and then dying while protecting my protege who happened to be tortured and and forced to work for Neo-Nazis.” _

He just smiles and nods, avoiding her eyes, fiddling with his calendar.

With a short wave over her shoulder, Carmen walks out only to be immediately replaced with Junior.

“H-Hey, dad. You ready to go?” Junior asks with a tilted smile on his face.

It’s odd, hearing anything but contempt and fear in Junior’s voice.

“Sure thing, J -” For a moment, he’s brought back to a different place and time, laid up on a bed with an aching head and an aching heart, calling Junior  _ Jesse _ . He licks his teeth to get the blond kid’s name out of his mouth. “... Sure thing.” He packs the marking he still has to do into his case and follows Junior out of the school, idly chatting about this and that, forcing himself to pretend that everything is normal.

He gets the feeling that Junior can tell something is wrong, but he can’t do anything about to address his son’s concerns. All he can do is lie and lie and lie. Towards the end, during his return to Albuquerque, he’d finally felt free. Everyone knew who he truly was. He received the recognition and the hatred he deserved. He’d been honest with Skyler, for the first time in a long time. And now... he’d never be able to be honest with his family again.

Without realizing it, Jesse had once again become the counterpoint of his life weighing on him as the only one who knew the truth.

Sharply, Walt wonders if this ache in his chest is the very same loneliness that Jesse is so afraid of.

He drops Junior off at home, wastes a few hours marking some of the worst lab reports he’s possibly ever seen during his tenure as a teacher, and leaves. Skyler gives him a tight-lipped smile, seemingly reminding herself of her invitation to “take all the time he needs”, and Junior gives him a thumbs up.

“Y-You’re like, doing what U-Uncle Hank does, but helping instead of arresting,” his son had said when he’d initially revealed his plan to “get Jesse clean” to his son at Skyler’s behest. Junior had even looked... proud of him. It’s a look he never thought he’d see again.

He spends the drive over to Jesse’s pondering how exactly he can pitch his plan to work with Gus to Jesse without making it sound like he’s back to being Heisenberg.

Walt’s immediately tense when Jesse opens the door with an adorable grin, and the kid seems to stick closer to him that evening, trying to puzzle out why he’s acting oddly. They cook dinner together again, working in a rhythm that Walt can’t help but feel nostalgic about even though their meth cooking days had ended so disastrously. Jesse seems to enjoy it too, crookedly half-smiling as he listens to Walt whistle.

They eat, sitting next to one another even though there’s spare room at the table, nudging elbows and shoulders. It’s homey. Nice. Walt isn’t looking forward to cracking open the ugly conversation he has waiting in the wings.

When they sit down on the couch, each with a beer in their hand, it takes Jesse markedly less time before he’s nestling into Walt’s side like a cat. Walt just barely holds himself back from petting him.

The program they’re watching is some show about antiques, as far as he can tell. A man and woman idly remark about each piece that’s shown off, voices subdued as if they were remarking on a golf game. Walt doesn’t really get the fascination but he doesn’t care to disrupt Jesse and get the remote to change the channel. He figures now is as good a time as any to have strenuous talks, so he clears his throat and loosens his arm around Jesse. “I wanted to talk to you about, uh, my plan,” Walt begins awkwardly.

The kid at his side shrugs against him. “‘Kay.”

“Er, well, I… I want you to know, I really did think this through, and I’m not trying to… Break the rules here, but -”

At this, finally Jesse leans up and away from him, eyes narrowed and lips pressed tightly together, but he doesn’t say anything. Just waits stony faced.

Walt forges on. “Gus initially offered me - before, I mean, the first time - three million dollars for a three month contract, and if I can do this, I swear I will end it there.”

Jesse takes it as poorly as expected. He gets up, toppling their beers over and spilling it on his table. “You promised,” he says in a shaking voice.

Walt spreads his hands entreatingly and maturely doesn’t say  _ no I didn’t, actually _ . “No one has to die. You don’t have to get involved - no, rather, I think it’s for the best if you don’t _. _ Alright? Just in and out. Three months and I’ll give you half of it, fifty-fifty partners.”

“ _ I don’t want your fucking money! _ ” Jesse shouts at the top of his lungs, face flushed with mounting anger, throwing his arms wide.

“I realize that,” Walt says mildly in return to keep the annoyance out of his voice, thinking back to the last time he gave Jesse money and it had ended up spread all over town. He reaches down to pick up the spilled bottles and places them back upright.

“Then stop fucking thinking you can buy me,” he hisses back, lips curled in a snarl.

Walt feels a twinge of something cold and hard in his chest.  _ Can this little moron make up his mind? Does he want me to live or die? _ He fights it down, locks the door in his chest even tighter, keeps focused on the kid in front of him who looks like someone just shot his dog. “Listen to me, Jesse, I have no other recourse -”

“I will help you, I will do anything, I said so, please, Mr. White, just.... Just stop working the game, just for a minute.” Jesse’s anger is gone, replaced by pleading, the kid’s eyes wide and his hands shakingly cupping at Walt’s shoulders. “Gus is bad news, right? I mean, you - you did so much fucked up shit to kill him, it’s  _ gotta _ be bad news to go back to him right?”

Walt slides his hands over the ones gripping his shoulders, thumbs across the backs of them gently, thinking of the beautiful Lily of the Valley. He doesn’t know what to say. His best bet is getting back in bed with Fring as much as the idea both infuriates and terrifies him.

Jesse looks devastated at his silence. “No, Mr. White. No more blood money. No more dirty money. No more Heisenberg.  _ Please _ .”

He closes his eyes, still soothingly rubbing little circles into Jesse’s skin. He knows what he can say to destroy Jesse’s resolve.  _ “If I don’t, I will die from the cancer. Is that what you’d prefer?” _

Part of him wants to crush Jesse a little bit more under his heel, wants to force him to leave Walt, to finally be so defeated that he’ll turn tail and run… But he doesn’t say it. He just feels tired, leans his head against Jesse’s chest and wraps his arms around the boy’s shockingly thin middle and tries to not cry.

Arms circle around him, hold him against Jesse, and they stay like that for awhile. He smells boyish, soft, charming, and it oddly calms his nerves. The rhinestones on the boy’s shirt are like little prickles of soothing cold against his forehead. Walt just wants to stay frozen in time there forever. He doesn’t want to think anymore.

All too soon, Jesse pulls him away. “No more. Please, no more.” The kid grabs his face and makes them look each other in the eye and shakes him gently. “Mr. White?”

Walt doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing left to say. He thinks about the cheapest ways his family can have a funeral. He’ll make sure that they invite Jesse to it. That’s the least he can do.

“Don’t give up, okay? We can do something, I  _ know _ you can figure something else out,” Jesse all but bawls.

He can’t help but admire the optimism Jesse still somehow has, even though his naivete has been ravaged so thoroughly. God, he wishes he could erase everything, truly go back and have a clean slate so that Jesse could return to the cocksure, loud-mouthed, confident idiot he’d been before Walt broke him down into tiny little pieces.

“Mr. White,” Jesse begs again, collapsing to his knees, clasping and bringing Walt’s hands up to his forehead in a pseudo-prayer position.

He extracts a hand and lays it Jesse’s head, rubbing through the soft hair. “Alright,” he says in defeat. “Alright, son. I’ll find a way.” His heart breaks a little at Jesse’s quiet sob of relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be posting the next chapter right away - since it's just an interim chapter setting up for future events - and then the next actual chapter will be back to Jesse's POV! Hope you enjoyed reading - and if you did I'd love a comment/kudo to let me know :D thank you!


	6. Interim: Speaking of the Devil

Skyler White, nee Lambert, knows that out of her many virtues patience has not always been the strongest one. She’s a forward-thinker, always moving, always working. Cooking, cleaning, shopping, managing finances - it was a time consuming job in itself, being a mother and wife.

So when her husband of so many years slips out the front door yet again, disappearing off to some unknown junkie’s house - and yes, she knew his name but she’d never met the man herself - she has to strictly remind herself to be  _ patient _ . She’d promised Walt that night early on in this escapade that she’d support him, and so she will. No matter how frustrating or worrying it is, she had to believe he was safe and knew what he was doing.

It still puts her slightly off-kilter when she thinks about it. Walt was a fine teacher, but that didn’t mean it extended beyond in class supervision. His relationships with students began when the first bell rang, and ended when he went home. This is absolutely the first time anything like this has happened and Skyler can’t be sure what to make of it.

Walt’s different now, somehow. He’d changed once he started going to see this Jesse Pinkman, and she isn’t sure she likes the change. Sometimes it feels like he’s living a life totally separate from them.

With a finger running over her wedding band, she imagines and then discards the potential of Walt having an affair. It might explain the guilt she sometimes sees crawl across his face when he looks at her, but then he wouldn’t be stupid enough to go see this student every day.

And if there’s one thing in this world she’s certain of, it’s that Walt isn’t stupid.

Not to mention the co-conspirator himself - a  _ male student _ ? Walt had never shown any interest in anyone other than her after they’d started dating. It was one of the most attractive parts of him; once he got something in his head, he never let go of it even if it caused him hell.

Still, as she cooks dinner for herself and Junior, she can’t help but feel as though there’s something bigger at play. Maybe not an affair, but maybe… There’s some secret lingering in the perpetually creased corners of Walt’s eyes and she’s determined to figure out what it is.

Her first mistake is confiding in her sister.

“Oh, my God,  _ every day _ ? What - do you know who this person is? What’s their name? Has Walt introduced you, I mean, really -” Marie fires off, pop pop pop, like a machine gun.

“Yes, every day. And I know his name is Jesse Pinkman and apparently he used to be a student of Walt’s at Wynne. No, we haven’t been properly introduced.” Skyler smirks and shakes her head. “Come on, Marie, you think Walt’s going to bring a recovering drug addict to our house? When I’m like this?”

As emphasis, she arches her back and sticks her stomach even further out.

“You’re like a blimp,” Marie comments, eyeing her. Sometimes Skyler wonders if Marie never had kids because she didn’t want to look ‘like a blimp’. “Anyways, don’t you think it’s kinda weird? I didn’t know Walt kept in contact with his old students.”

“Neither did I.” And Walt  _ had _ described him as a troublemaker, so she kind of doubts that the kid had been particularly engaged with his class enough for them to stay talking after - how many years?

Now that she thinks about it, he’d never really shared any of that information. How old he is, how they reconnected - anything beyond his name and his apparent addiction. She feels a small flare of suspicion light up again but she stomps it out.

Skyler hulls another strawberry. She and Marie were making smoothies, cracking away at another health fad that Marie had sniffed out from some odd corner.

Marie is chattering away still. “I mean, that’s great of him to do, goodness knows, Hank is always coming home and talking about how bad the meth problem is in Albuquerque. But they can be violent, you know, there’s a reason that Hank has to carry a gun!” She nods knowingly, like she’s the DEA expert.

Skyler wants a smoke.

“Oh my gosh, I just got a great idea. Why don’t I - yeah, actually I’ll do that! I mean, you don’t mind if I tell Hank right?”

It’s been a  _ long _ time, and Skyler still has trouble following Marie’s non sequiturs sometimes. “You’re going to do what, sorry?”

“I’ll tell Hank his name and maybe we can - I don’t know, I’m just worried for Walt’s safety you know? So what if I get Hank to sit him down, mano-y-mano, and have him talk some sense into him!”

She laughs. “What, are you saying you want to have an intervention?”

“Skyler, you don’t know anything about this - what was his name? Oh right - Pinkman! Don’t you think that it’s possible, maybe, that Walt could be… in trouble? I’m not doubting him, at all, of course - but…” Marie shrugs and purses her lips. “I think it’s a wife’s job to make sure her husband’s okay.”

There’s the passive aggressiveness she knows and hates. Neither of them could claim to be trophy wives, and it was just the tiniest, eensiest, teensiest, littlest bit irksome that Marie would try to claim some sort of moral superiority.

“And,” Marie drops her voice into a salacious whisper. “I don’t know if this has crossed your mind, Skyler, but maybe - and I know Walt’s a great guy - but…” She twitches her head and gives her a raised brow. “You know…”

Skyler stares at her silently.

Her sister huffs and throws a strawberry somewhat violently into the blender. “What if he’s…  _ You know _ .” Marie looks side to side, over her shoulder, leans to peer around the corner down the hallway. “What if he’s Walt’s dealer? What if Walt’s becoming a drug addict himself?”

Skyler throws her head back and laughs. “Come on, Marie. Seriously? Walt’s suddenly taking drugs with some - some guy who used to be in his class God knows how long ago?”

“Well,” Marie pouts. “I know that Walt’s a straight-laced guy, and he loves you and Junior so much that I guess he probably wouldn’t, but… I mean, you hear so often about how it’s always the one you least suspect! You never know!”

They pop the strawberries and other fruits they’ve chopped up into the blender, topping it off with some ugly green ooze that Marie had bought for a ludicrous amount thanks to some reality show she always watched.

Ah. Reality show. Suddenly things were clear. Skyler snorts with laughter. “You have been watching too much TV. I’ve got to say, your imagination is incredible. Maybe I should get you to write my short stories, huh?”

Marie slams the blender’s lid on and seems to gleefully jab the highest speed button. “Well, if you like my imagination so much, how about this? If this student of his really needs recovery, then how do you, or how does  _ he _ , know that this guy won’t relapse? That’s dangerous stuff, you know. Hank carries a -”

“- yes, a gun, I know.”

The whirring stops and Marie pours out some sludge into two cups. The fruits would have been so nice together, but this green ooze had really given it an unappealing look. Skyler picks up her cup with a decent amount of trepidation.

“If you know, then why are you acting so -” Marie waves a hand in a complicated motion, and picks up her own sludge. They clink cups and take sips. Skyler swallows the bitter, vile, green thing and wonders what kind of poison could have possibly overwhelmed the other parts of the smoothie. Marie’s nose wrinkles, but she casts an eye down at herself and chugs some more.

“Marie, I appreciate your concern. I do. But…”

“But nothing. Listen, he’s my family too. If he’s really out there, doing something that could seriously backfire on him. What will you do if he gets hurt? Especially with you being...”

Skyler dumps her sludge into the sink and washes it down. How like Marie. Swinging back and forth from worry, to accusations, back to worry. And she just  _ knows _ that if Marie has held onto one topic for this long then it really does mean something important to her. It also means she won’t be leaving it alone until she gets her way.

“Would it really be so bad to just have Hank -” Marie is still talking. Dad had passed down his gift of the gab to her for sure.

“Alright,” Skyler interrupts loudly before Marie can get into her second wind. She doesn’t really want to hear the twisting paths Marie will try and take her down to convince her. “We’ll do it. But I’m not throwing Walt to the wolves. Why don’t we just sit down like adults, all of us, and talk it out together?”

Marie claps her hands together excitedly, bouncing on her heels. “Yes! Perfect! Okay, just tell me when and we’ll be there.”

Skyler shakes her head with a fondness she can’t quite force down. At the very least, she figures, it would be nice to have her and Hank over for dinner again, and have a reason to force Walt to stay home for a change.


	7. Consequences of Consequences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of an experiment mixing the two POVs in one chapter... *sweats* Hope it wasn't too clunky! Enjoy :D

The couch is gradually becoming his favourite place in his entire house, Jesse decides after a few quiet weeks have passed. He’s taken to bringing down a pillow and a blanket and curling up on it, breathing and existing in the space Mr. White always occupies when they sit together and watch whatever random garbage is on the TV. Sometimes he pretends he can smell the cologne or body wash or _whatever_ Mr. White wears still lingering around the living room like an inviting, friendly ghost. He wonders if it should be strange to him, how used to how Mr. White smells over the time they’ve been spending together he’s become, always pressed against him on the couch. On anyone else it would smell pretty lame and definitely laughably old-man-ish, but on Mr. White it’s kinda stupidly nice.

Most of the time when he sleeps now, he wakes up sweating with nightmares, a thousand scenes of blood and death swirling around his head: memories of Jane, memories of Andrea, memories of Mr. White selling him out in To’hajiilee, of ricin cigarettes and Neo-Nazis and blue crystals surrounding him, choking him, growing under his skin… But it’s manageable. It has to be.

When he wakes up to the distant memories of blood that fade in the sunlight, he goes about his usual routine of washing up, checking his fridge to see if there’s enough stuff in there for Mr. White to work with, and then circling back to the couch to wait for the day to pass until Mr. White comes back. There’s not a lot for him to do, but he doesn’t really mind. As long as he isn’t cooking meth, he’s happy.

Realistically he knows that he should probably just force himself to go outside and enjoy his freedom, something that he honestly never thought he’d have again when he was still in Jack’s compound, but he doesn’t. Instead, he lounges there for a long time, playing more of Cooking Mama. He’s probably played it a dozen times through now but he doesn’t feel like playing something with violence and it’s exhausting just thinking about heading to the mall to find a new game. Being around all those people… Jesse hates the thought of it. He'd basically become a hermit after leaving the business, and now, after everything, thinking about leaving the safety of his house and wandering around where anyone could get him - it all just combines into a pressure that feels so heavy it'll cave his chest in if he goes outside.

The cute little cartoonish woman on the screen praises him for mixing the pot in perfect time and he wonders if Mr. White would be able to make this soup because it’s kinda seriously starting to make him hungry just thinking about it. It’s a red looking broth with noodles and potatoes and shit in it. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s requested a dish that secretly came from the game.

When the phone starts ringing he just nearly manages to not eat the floor tripping over the ends of his baggy pants.

Yanking it off the receiver he really does his damndest to stop from sounding giddy as hell when he sees the number calling. “Yo, Mr. White! What’s up?”

“Hello, Jesse,” comes the low voice over the phone. Jesse can hear the clattering of dishes and Mrs. White and their kid talking. “I wanted to talk to you regarding tonight.” The talking in the background dips in volume and he imagines Mr. White moving away from them, talking quietly into the phone, like he’s doing something illicit that he doesn’t want his family to know about.

 _Some things never change,_ Jesse thinks. It sours in his stomach a little. “If you’re so embarrassed to get caught talking to me, why’d you call me at your house, dumbass?”

Mr. White tsks at him, like he’s an unruly kid. “I’m not embarrassed by you, Jesse.”

 _Yeah, right,_ he thinks.

“I just… Well, what I was going to say before is, I won’t be coming over tonight.” Mr. White sounds grumpy, almost angry, his voice a low growl into the phone.

Jesse thinks about Cooking Mama’s soup and tries not to whine. “How come?”

“We, ah… Family dinner.” Mr. White almost sounds pained. “Marie and…” He hears a thick swallow, audible even over the phone. “My brother-in-law will be over.”

ASAC Schrader. The guy who’d beaten the shit out of him almost as badly as Tuco did, who’d finally figured out the mystery behind Heisenberg, and who’d died because he was too goddamn stupid to listen to Jesse’s warnings about Mr. White being luckier than the devil himself.

“Yo, are you gonna be able to, like, handle that?” The memory of Mr. White collapsing and crying his eyes out over the DEA member’s dead body flashes in front of his eyes. He still feels kind of responsible for what happened - if he hadn’t lost his shit, if he hadn’t decided to rat, if he’d fucking listened for once in his life when Schrader told him that Mr. White cared for him maybe it wouldn’t have all gone down the way it did.

“I’ll be fine,” Mr. White says but he sounds tired. “I’ll call you tomorrow, alright?”

“Yeah, man, sounds good.” Jesse quirks his lips in disappointment because he knows Mr. White won’t say “I love you” when his family’s around, and that still makes him a little sore, knowing that even if Mr. White said he was family, that doesn’t mean anything compared to his _real_ family. “Bye, I guess.”

“Goodbye, Jesse.”

He pulls the phone away from his head and puts it back into its receiver. The cheery pause music from the TV is playing in the background but all he wants to do is find the shit he’s still got stashed around the house and get fucked up out of his mind, pretend that he’s not feeling like it’s the end of the world because Mr. White can’t spend yet another evening with him - and he’s not sure why he’s feeling all messed up about it, but he is.

...Except he _does_ know why, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. And it’s because Mr. White’s the only fucking person he’s got in this world who knows what he’s really like, what he’s done, what they’ve both done for and to each other.

Without Mr. White, he’s _alone_.

He gnaws at the skin around his nails, chewing until he tastes little bursts of iron, and manages to sit back down on the couch. Mr. White promised, so Jesse won’t use. There’s probably a narcotics anonymous meeting going on in the city that he might be able to force himself to go to, somewhere, but he still feels a little - a _lot_ \- guilty about how it had ended last time. Him, talking about putting down a problem dog. Confessing he wanted to sell them all crystal. The look on his counsellor’s face.

Mr. White had known back then he was stealing, kept saying he couldn’t protect him if Gus found out but he’d been too stubborn to admit it. Too angry and cut up inside from having murdered Gale for him to let Mr. White in and help him. By the time he tried to open up, Mr. White had moved on and Jesse’s emotional state wasn’t really his main problem anymore.

And then he’d tried to destroy the lives of innocent people who were just trying to get better.

Jesse grinds his palms into his eyes until stars burst behind his eyelids.

They’ve got an insane opportunity to fix what happened and Jesse can’t get away from the pain and shit the past two years had dumped on him. Sooner or later he knows it’s going to go to shit. Maybe Mr. White will hurt him first or maybe it’ll be Jesse who trips first, but he just knows that something is going to break and he just hopes it isn’t him again.

He sits and cries right in the middle of his sunny living room with a sweet little tune playing on the TV.

* * *

 

Walt sets the table, putting down every piece of silver in a daze, angling them and pushing them until they’re all perfectly straight. He idly wipes the plates if he sees water spots, picks away at the bits of lint on the chairs, fusses with the table cloth until it’s perfect. He isn’t ready for dinner. He wonders if perhaps he could simply call it off, pretend he’s sick.

In the end he doesn’t say anything. Simply sits on the couch, and patiently waits.

They arrive perfectly on time. Marie bustles in, chatting up a storm and hugging him and Skyler before Hank even manages to get to the door.

“Wow, Walt, you look - different! That’s a good look on you!” Marie brightly compliments him.

He rubs idly at his face. He’d decided to let his beard grow out again, like he had in New Hampshire. Once he’d started, Jesse had toyed with his glasses, commenting how he needed to get thicker frames. Eventually when he finds a way to without worrying about the frankly absurd prices associated with eyecare, he thinks he will get new glasses - just to make sure he remembers who he had once been.

It was easy sometimes, to forget just for a second. To wake up and go to work at J.P. Wynne as though he’d never left. To have dinner with Skyler and Junior as if he’d never cut them so deeply that they’d never forgive him. When he was with Jesse, he remembered everything, but he couldn’t let himself pretend when he was away anymore.

When Hank finally does come in, grinning and waving some of his Schraderbrau, Walt sees him with a bullet in his head, bleeding over the dry sand in To’hajiilee.

“Hey, buddy!” Hank is still grinning at him, and he pulls Walt into a one armed hug before doing the same to Junior who looks delighted to see him.

The world is spinning around him. He feels like he’d just stepped off a bridge and was waiting, light-headed and dizzy, until he hit the ground. He stumbles away from the group all excitedly talking and manages to make it to his bathroom before vomiting his guts up into the toilet.

He sees himself there from so long ago, on his knees, puking from the chemo, looking for Gale’s book, and realizing someone had it. Someone knew. Someone had seen his dark secrets.

_Hank had figured him out._

He begins crying against the cool porcelain, wishing he would just die right that second. What kind of man is he? What kind of coward is he? He feels slim hands rubbing his back, and he stands with their guidance.

“Walt?” he hears, distantly, as though he is hearing the voice through a long, dark tunnel.

After a minute, he comes back to himself and Skyler is cradling his face, looking frightened. “Walt? Are you okay?”

Wordlessly, he shakes his head, weeping as she gently wipes his face.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

When he doesn’t respond again, she sits him down on the edge of the tub. “Walt, _please_ tell me what’s wrong.”

His jaw works and he sees the perfect way out. “I - I have to tell you something, Sky.” He takes a hold of her hands and looks into her eyes. She looked so worried, so caring, that it pains him to take advantage of it, but he does anyways. “I went to the doctor recently,” he half-lies, cutting conveniently around his collapse.

He hadn’t been at the car wash this time because of his abrupt “illness”, instead going and wandering around somewhere once Skyler had left the house.

Skyler puts a hand to her mouth, preparing herself for something awful.

Walt braces himself. “When I saw the whole family together, I just couldn’t take it. I couldn’t handle not telling you anymore.” He swallows and tastes bile. “I… I have lung cancer.”

There’s a moment of strained silence.

“What?” Skyler sounds as if she’d just been punched in the gut, the word leaving her in a harsh gust of breath.

He bows his head. Never could he have imagined having to break this news to the same person twice. It’s just as hard as it was before, looking at her heartbroken face. He feels her going through the steps of grief, head shaking as if he would suddenly say it was all just a joke, her beautiful face struggling with emotions.

“I’m sorry, Sky.”

“When did you find out?” she manages in a strained whisper.

“Just after my birthday.”

She pulls her hands away, looking stricken. “Oh my god, Walt… That’s why you were sick, isn’t it? Because you... Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

Because he’d been busy stumbling around in a world that had rewound itself by two years, caring for a young man whose life he had destroyed, and trying to figure out what his game plan could possibly be if he wanted to avoid all the blood and tears he’d waded through before. But he can’t say that. So he says, “I didn’t want to believe it myself. I was running away from it.”

Skyler shakes her head and her hands go to her stomach. Now, he thinks, now she’s fully realizing what this means. Their children will grow up without their father. Their finances are going to dissolve. _Everything_ is going to change.

“Walt…”

She reaches out and strokes his hair, pulling him towards her. He rests his head lightly against her curved belly, pretending he can hear Holly’s heartbeat.

They stay there for a minute, hearing the rest of their family in the living room chatting.

“Walt, today was supposed to be…” Skyler laughs but it catches on a sob. “I told Marie about your old student - I mean God, it’s been weeks that you’ve been spending with him nearly _every day_ \- and she of course wanted to tell Hank, and she managed to convince me to stage this… dinner in order to have a conversation about it.”

A conversation? About Jesse, of all things? He distantly hopes that they won’t bring out the talking pillow again, because it’s beginning to sound like an intervention.

“I guess plans have changed now, huh?” Skyler smiles through tears.

He rubs her arm gently. The last thing he wants right now is to tell Hank, Marie, and Junior about his cancer, but there isn’t much to change that now. “Let’s handle one thing at a time.” She nods, sniffles a bit, and dabs at her eyes.

Someone knocks on their bedroom door as Skyler puts herself back together and Walt washes the taste of vomit out of his mouth. “You guys?” It’s Marie. Walt thanks the heavens that it isn’t Hank.

“We’ll be out in a second, Marie,” Walt calls back. He waits for her noise of assent before turning back to Skyler. “You ready?” She gives him a small smile. “Everything will work itself out,” he promises, pressing a few kisses to her forehead despite feeling very much as though nothing is going to work out.

They walk back to the living room hand in hand.

“Hey, you two!” Marie greets, perhaps a bit too cheerfully, and Walt gets the feeling that she knows something is off, or maybe she’s trying to cover up the intervention that is about to take place.

Hank is sitting at the table, regaling Junior with a crude story about a case he’d been working, and he lifts up a beer to Walt as they sit down at the table.

When Walt just grits his teeth and avoids looking at them, Skyler tightens her grip on his hand and shakes it lightly as if to say, “You’re not alone.” He knows she’s waiting for him to bring up his diagnosis first, but he can’t figure out the perfect order of words yet.

Marie twitters about every inane little thing under the sun as she dishes out dinner, prompting some weak responses from Skyler as Hank blazes forward with his story about a drug-bust he’d done with Steve Gomez a few weeks back, hauling in some poorly produced meth. It wasn’t $700,000 worth, but apparently he’d nabbed a cook and his lab.

Junior listens intently, appropriately looking impressed and guffawing when Hank puts his little stingers of humour in.

After Hank finishes his story, Junior says, “Y-You know, Uncle Hank, Dad’s been helping someone stop using.”

Skyler’s eyes nearly pop out of her head but before she can say anything, Marie jumps onto that like a cat with a stuffed toy it’s been waiting patiently for. “Wow! That sounds _so_ interesting! Why don’t you tell us about it, Walt?”

Hank raises an eyebrow, tongue pushing against the inside of his cheek.

“Oh. It’s nothing as… impressive as, uh, what you do,” Walt demurs, keeping his eyes on his plate. “I’ve just been helping an old student of mine get off drugs.”

Marie looks back and forth between him and Hank. “ _Wow_. That’s so…” She gestures, waving her hands in the air as if trying to snatch the perfect word out of the air. “Nice!”

“But dangerous,” Hank bluntly adds on. “And pointless. Look, Walt, I know with you being a teacher and all, you want to help people. And that’s admirable. But take it from someone with experience - a junkie is a junkie is a junkie. They don’t change, it just ain’t in their DNA.”

Walt bites back a lecture on how substance abuse and DNA can correlate, but doesn’t always necessitate causation and keeps himself steady. “I, ah, appreciate the advice. But I think I know what I’m doing with him.”

Hank laughs. “Oh yeah? You holding his hand while he cries about how hard his life is and sing some hippie dippy songs? Or whatever the hell it is they actually do in rehab.” He scoffs, downs the rest of his beer. “Nah. A criminal, a junkie, same thing. They always go back. No offense.”

“No offense taken, Hank,” Walt says with a carefully calm voice. God knows how many times he’d called Jesse a pathetic junkie, but hearing the word “junkie” now, tossed across his dinner table like it was nothing by Hank of all people... He knows on a purely intellectual level that there’s no way anyone can understand how much Jesse matters to him, but it digs under his skin anyways.

“Yes, Walt, we of course totally support you,” Marie simpers, reaching over and laying a hand over his, looking so genuinely supportive that he feels ill. “But we want to make sure you’re safe.”

“Junkies are dangerous when they’re using, and even more so when they’re not,” Hank taps the side of his head. “If they’re off, they just get twitchy and angry until they find a new source.”

“Jesse isn’t like that. It’s been nearly three weeks and I’ve been just fine.” He’s sure his voice is a bit more stiff.

Hank huffs a disbelieving laugh but he just shrugs. “You’re the smart one, Walt. If that’s what you think, then hey. But -” he leans forward, pointing a finger “- if you ever need someone to help you take care of him if he gets dangerous, then you give me a call. Yeah?”

Marie looks appalled. “What? You’re giving up just like that?”

Hank groans.

“Marie, I think maybe we should just calm down,” Skyler prompts with a brittle smile. “There’s worse things that can happen to Walt than taking care of a - a recovering youth.” She gives him a deliberate side-eye and tightens her grip on his hand.

Walt can tell she’s trying to steer the conversation away from Jesse and towards his diagnosis, but there’s nothing to budge Marie once she gets an idea in her head. “No way! That’s ridiculous, Skyler! Your _husband_ could be in _danger_. I mean you told me he even stayed at this guy’s house,” she hisses like she’s accusing them. “Walt could’ve disappeared - could’ve _died_ \- and you wouldn’t have ever even known!”

Junior’s eyes glance back and forth between the adults on the table, watching a verbal tennis match and not quite sure which side is going to win.

Walt clenches his jaw. “Jesse wouldn’t hurt me. He’s a good kid. He doesn’t have it in him to hurt a fly.” _Unless I tell him to._

Marie purses her lips, slightly shaking her head. And then she begins nodding, the glint in her eyes taking on a somewhat worrying look. “Okay. Well, why don’t we all meet him then? And then we can all decide as a family if this is okay. Yeah?” She looks at Hank and kicks him under the table when all he does is frown.

“Ouch! Shit, Marie,” Hank grumbles, rubbing his shin. When she gives him a glare and another kick he goes, “Yeah, alright, alright! Sure. I guess it wouldn’t hurt. I mean heck,” he laughs, “Maybe I’ve booked this jackoff before and can give you a heads up.”

Marie nods excitedly. “That’s a good idea, right Skyler? We can have him over for dinner one of these days and just… Make sure everything’s on the up-and-up, right?”

Junior picks that point to jump in. “I w-want to meet him, too. I think it’s kind of, of cool what Dad’s doing. S-so…” He shrugs and pushes some of his food around his plate, and looks at Skyler out of the corner of his eyes.

Skyler turns and meets his look of disbelief. How had things gone from he and Skyler discussing his diagnosis, to an attack on his relationship with Jesse, to a plan to _meet_ Jesse?

Walt waffles for a moment, unsure what part of this mess to start untangling first.

He doesn't get a chance. Skyler just smiles tersely and goes, “I think it’s a good idea. Walt will invite him over sometime and we can all take turns grilling this poor kid.” There’s a snippy passive aggressiveness in her voice but Marie ignores it. Skyler looks at him and mouths, _We’ll talk later._

So, his diagnosis is being put on the back burner after all. Somehow, he’s a little relieved, although he isn’t exactly excited about mixing the two halves of his life.

Dazed, he excuses himself and finds himself texting Jesse’s old number to explain the situation.

* * *

 

In the late hours of the evening, after Jesse's cried himself out and had his shower and gotten himself a pathetic dinner composed of frozen meals, he gets a text on his cell. He’s been getting some periodically from Badger, Combo, and Skinny Pete, but he hasn’t answered any of them. He’s just not ready to face his friends.

Even before the compound, he’d always felt like he was an adult alone in a room with a bunch of children who didn’t understand what the world was really like. After Gale, sitting with Badger and Pete, he’d always been sharply reminded of the fact that he would never be able to chat about nonsensical things like zombies or Star Trek again, not with the weight of death hanging around his neck.

And now that he’s back, unwilling to smoke up, unable to look Combo in the eyes, and so far removed from the carefree lifestyle of drinking, partying, and hittting up stripclubs - he doesn’t even bother trying to connect with them.

This text isn’t from them though. It’s from an unknown number and reads: **This is Walt. Can you talk?**

Jesse stares at the phone in his hand and feels a weird, warm feeling uncurling in his stomach. How the fuck did he even remember this number? He texts back instantly.

**ya sure. whats up?**

The next text takes a few minutes and Jesse wonders if maybe Mr. White is just bad at texting. He grins at the image of the older man peering at his cell intensely trying to figure out how to make it work.

 **Don’t get mad. Skyler told Marie and Hank about you.** That familiar feeling of guilt kicks up again when he sees the Schraders’ names. He can only imagine what Mr. White’s feeling, seeing their faces again, and he feels kind of really embarrassed about the fit he’d kicked up earlier.

Then the meaning of the words actually sinks in and his jaw drops.

 **They want to meet you. Marie is worried about me associating with you. Apparently that’s why we had our impromptu dinner tonight.** Jesse reads that one about ten times.

 **Yo… they want to what?** Jesse’s not convinced he conveyed enough confusion and dismay into that so before Mr. White can respond he sends: **????**

**I realize that’s not ideal.**

“Not ideal?” Jesse repeats aloud. There’s so much about this that’s the exact, polar opposite of ‘ideal’ it’s almost hilarious, except instead of laughing he’s just really worried.

**But I think it would be good. If they met you, my visiting you so often may be seen as less suspicious.**

He wants to argue that point, but he remembers when Mrs. White had shown up at his house the first time around, forever ago, demanding that he stay away from her husband because he was “selling him marijuana” or whatever. He gnaws at his lower lip. This sounds like a really bad idea just waiting to explode in their faces but if Mr. White thinks it’s a good idea then maybe it is. Emphasis on the _maybe_.

**like when? tonite?**

**No, not tonight. Maybe next week. What do you think?**

Jesse knows what he thinks, and he knows Mr. White knows what he thinks, and that’s a resounding _Hell No_ , but like a kid with his fingers stuck in a Chinese finger trap the easiest way forward with Mr. White is always the path of least resistance.

**ya i guess.**

**Good. I’ll let you know when. Thank you.**

He flips the bird at the cell phone before snapping it shut, hoping that the man on the other end can pick up the nasty vibes he’s sending his way. And like shutting the phone was a signal, there’s a pounding knock on his front door.

When he pulls it open without hesitation, expecting his friends coming back to bother him about not answering their texts again, the last thing he expects is to be forced inside by Emilio and Krazy-8.

* * *

 

The rest of the evening passes less awkwardly, although Walt can’t quite bring himself to interact much with Hank, morbid memories of the man’s brains spread out over the desert sand flashing across his eyes whenever he looked at him.

Late, after cleaning up, he’s getting in bed with Skyler and hears a small chime from his phone. Checking it, he finds a text from Jesse.

**help**

A blossom of worry blooms in his stomach from that one word, shining innocently at him out of his phone screen. He texts back, asking what he needs help with and when he doesn’t get a response within a few minutes, he gives the boy a call.

It rings and rings until going to voicemail.

“Walt?” Skyler calls from her spot on the bed. “You coming?”

He stares down at his cell. “Sky, I - I got a text from Jesse just now and now he’s not responding,” he confides with no small amount of concern in his voice.

She sits up in bed. “Do you… think he’s using? Did he say he was?”

“I’m not sure, I don’t know what’s wrong. But I think that I should go see him and make sure he’s alright. What do you think?”

Skyler watches him with intense blue eyes. “Is that the truth?”

Confusion spreads across his face. “What? Is what the truth?”

She shakes her head and stares at him with a sharp expression. “Walt, tell me honestly, do you think you’re in danger by being around that man at all?” He only gets as far as opening his mouth in outrage before she cuts him off, “Listen, Hank seemed to be serious when he was talking and I just… I looked him up earlier and he had this gaudy website, and it looked like he was a - a _drug dealer_ ,” she hisses incredulously.

“He may have been one,” Walt replies evenly. “But he wants out now. And I have to help him.”

She shrugs helplessly and cups her stomach. When she speaks again, her voice is tight. “I just don’t know what I would do without you.” The way she says it seems to hold a dozen different meanings.

Striding across the room he hugs her. He doesn’t deserve to be here again, holding her again. “I have to,” he whispers into her hair. “I promised him I would take care of him. I swear to you I’ll be fine.” He kisses the top of her head. “Alright?”

She gives him a somewhat cool look and lets him leave without another complaint, turning over in bed and away from him.

Within a few minutes he’s dressed and out the door, hopping into his car and speeding all the way to Jesse’s home. Some of the lights are on, and when he gets there the front door is cracked slightly open.

He knocks on the door if only for customary propriety, and then immediately pushes it open. His heart stops when he sees inside. Chairs are knocked over and there’s some drops of blood on the floor. He rushes further in and sees Jesse curled up on the ground in a small huddle.

“ _Jesse?_ ”

The boy twitches in place, and lifts his face up. It’s a mess. Part of him jumps to the conclusion that somehow Hank had paid him a visit and left the kid’s face one big, bloody, cut up bruise. But that doesn't make sense. Nothing about this makes sense. He'd only left the boy alone for a _day_ , and this had happened?

“Mr. White,” Jesse gasps in pain. Walt is at his side in a second, carefully guiding him upright, hands trying to find a place that won’t hurt Jesse more, searching out areas where the bruises and cuts aren’t lined up along the boy’s thin body.

Walt can feel the boy shivering from night air blowing over him and he rips his jacket off and wraps him up in it. It looks about as big on him as one of his ridiculous hoodies.

The door inside of Walt, the one he'd kept so carefully closed after frightening Jesse, is unhinged. The biting winds of rage are howling and he knows that the only thing that will close it up again is blood.

“It’s alright son,” Walt says, voice manicured and cultured into something that doesn’t reveal how blisteringly infuriated he is at whoever would dare come into this house, abuse this boy - _his_ Jesse - and think they could get away with it. “Let’s get you to the hospital, alright? Take it slow, don’t push yourself.” He casts a brief prayer of thanks that his body hasn’t withered away like it had after those six months in his frozen New Hampshire prison.

“...wasn’t careful… should’ve checked the door… Don’ get mad, you promised, you swore you wouldn’t kill anyone,” the boy held carefully against him slurs with difficulty past his bruised lips and cheek.

Walt will destroy the people responsible. That’s a fact. But his vengeance will be put on hold until he has Jesse safely put into a hospital and taken care of.

So he hushes the battered kid and slowly helps him outside and to his Aztek. Jesse struggles to get in, relying on Walt to heft him in and buckle the seatbelt over him.

“‘M sorry…” Jesse’s voice is coloured with embarrassment as Walt fusses over him like a father to his son.

Walt carefully presses his lips to the less bloody and bruised side of Jesse’s face. “It’ll be alright, son.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for all your comments and support ;w;


	8. Forgiveness of a thousand sins for one virtue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm positive a hospital wouldn't actually do this but whatever.

Jesse itches lightly at a cut on his face that’s closed with butterfly stitches and wonders when the nurse will be back. She’d promised to go sneak him an extra pudding after he’d given her a busted up puppy dog look.

The TV is on silent, closed captions rolling slowly across the bottom of the screen and he’d already been denied access to the remote so he's stuck reading the stilted black-and-white words. It’s a cooking show, and that only serves to piss him off more. He can’t eat any of the shit on the screen because he's pretty sure the hospital cafeteria doesn't serve chicken pesto pasta, not to mention he still can’t go home where Mr. White can cook something up for him. He’s pretty fucking positive Mr. White could make a better chicken noodle soup than the watery shit the hospital keeps feeding him.

Groaning, he rolls onto his less fucked up side. They’d wrapped his ribs up like he’d had done after Tuco, and they'd fixed his face up as much as possible, icing it and putting on lotion to bring down the bruising, and putting stitches over where Emilio and Krazy-8 had split the skin.

He’s going to lose his mind from boredom. He’s been here all day, waiting for Mr. White to come visit him. The nurse had chatted brightly about how attentive his father had been, how he’d stayed until the early hours of dawn waiting for Jesse to get out of emergency, how he’d demanded a call the instant Jesse woke up.

It kinda hurts when he hears her call Mr. White his dad, but he shoves the feeling down. At least someone in this fucked up world actually gave a shit about him, unlike his bitches of parents. He bites back how weird it feels that that someone is Mr. fucking White.

He turns back over when he hears some bustling around. The nurse is back with his promised pudding cup and smiling brightly at him. She’s a nice lady, a middle aged woman with flushed cheeks and short brown hair, kind of makes him think of some of the kinder nurses back in rehab.

“I’ve got a surprise for you!” the nurse announces. Jesse tilts the pudding cup questioningly. “Not just that - you’ve got a visitor!”

He twists and looks behind her and he sees Mr. White standing there awkwardly.

“I’ll leave you and your dad alone now. Just give us a buzz if you need anything.” She leaves, pointing at the little button as if she hasn’t told Jesse that a dozen times that morning already.

He gives her a small salute, and then struggles to get himself more upright when Mr. White pulls up a chair and sits next to Jesse’s bed. His face is hurting again, and once he realizes that he forces himself to stop grinning at the older man like an absolute idiot.

“How are you doing?” Mr. White asks quietly, reaching out to take the pudding out of Jesse's lax hands and opening it.

“I can do that myself.” He won’t lie - it’s kinda nice to be taken care of like this, but he isn’t  _ actually _ the guy’s son. “And I’m doing fine, yo. Like I’ve said before, you kinda get used to it.” It’s kind of a pathetic part of his life, that he’d gotten the shit kicked out of him so many times that he’s just not even phased by it anymore.

The only thing that worries him this time is knowing the man sitting next to him would murder over something like this. He doesn’t think he can handle flushing Emilio down his toilet again. And besides, Mr. White had promised that he wouldn’t kill anymore and that was the important part. It was like an addict going through rehab. Killing someone was Mr. White’s fix. Jesse's not stupid - it gives Mr. White a high, controlling and deciding who gets to live or die.

Mr. White is nodding distractedly, looking down at his fingers laced tightly in his lap. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

He doesn’t say anything after that, just sits there examining his own hands.

“Yo, Mr. White…” Jesse puts his pudding down and reaches over to touch the man’s shoulder which twitches under his hand. “You okay? You’re acting all weird.”

Mr. White lays a hand over Jesse’s. It’s big and warm. Jesse bites the cuts on the inside of his cheek to kill the butterflies fluttering in his stomach when Mr. White starts rubbing his thumb back and forth over the skin of Jesse’s hand.

His eyes flicker up to the door. The nurse isn’t here. A childish, insane desire to ask Mr. White to kiss his face all better rises up in his chest so he takes his hand back and shakily picks up his pudding.

“Who was it?”

The quiet voice belies the danger in Mr. White’s voice. Jesse shivers and sticks a spoonful of pudding in his mouth, shrugging around it.

Mr. White leans forward and it takes every last bit of spine he has to not lean away.

“Last night,” Mr. White murmurs, “my brother-in-law said he’d arrested a meth cook in his lab about a few weeks ago. I’ve been thinking about it all night.” He reaches out and lightly angles Jesse’s face towards him. “It was Domingo and his cousin, wasn’t it? They thought you ratted.”

He struggles to keep his face from reacting, but Mr. White can see right through him.

“Don’t worry.” Mr. White’s thumb is rubbing gently at the side of Jesse’s face, softly, so softly compared to the dangerous look in his eyes. “I’ll take care of everything.”

“ _ Don’t _ . Mr. White, please don’t. You promised you wouldn’t kill anyone anymore.”

“They brought this down on their own heads.”

“They were just acting tough, but they - they just bruised me up a little, it’s not worth killing them for it. It’s  _ done _ now.”

Mr. White smiles humourlessly. “People like them don't leave things alone so easily. Haven't you learned that by now?” His thumb sweeps back and forth to the beat of his words. “Do you really think they’ll leave you alone if they believe you’ve ratted on them?”

“If they really thought I’d spilled my guts to the DEA, I’d be dead,” Jesse argues back.

“Maybe so. But if you want out, you need to get rid of the ties that are holding you back to that old life. And not to mention,” Mr. White all but snarls past his calm facade, “They hurt you. They won’t get away with that.”

Mr. White stands up, still holding Jesse’s face so gently it makes him feel like a piece of brittle, precious porcelain. He curves himself down and presses his lips to Jesse’s hairline. “Everything will be okay,” he promises against Jesse’s hair.

Jesse fists his hands in Mr. White’s jacket. He shakes and tries to find a way to keep this inevitable conclusion from being drawn. The smell of hydrofluoric acid is clinging to his nose, filling his mouth and he feels like he’s gonna start fucking choking on it.

“I won’t forgive you if you do,” he whispers harshly into the guy’s collar. It’s nothing more than an empty and useless promise, and a desperate final plea.

“That’s alright,” Mr. White smiles into his hair, “I know you don’t forgive me for everything else, and you don’t have to. I’ll do what has to be done, and you’ll hate me for it, and it’s alright.”

“I already fucking hate you,” Jesse seethes through a burst of angry, helpless tears.

“I don’t mind. It doesn’t change anything between us. I’m going to take care of you, alright, son? I’m going to make sure they don’t ever,  _ ever _ , touch you again.”

Jesse feels his grip go lax. The fight goes out of him. Mr. White wouldn’t change. Jesse had known that he wouldn’t, that of course it would be the same as it always had been - Mr. White thinking he knows what’s best and murdering to protect Jesse even when he didn’t want it. Nothing had changed at all.

Mr. White kisses the crown of his head and pulls away, gently disengaging Jesse’s hands from his jacket. “Just rest up, alright? Call me when you’re discharged and I’ll take you home.”

All he can do is watch as Mr. White walks away from him.

He feels numb for the rest of the day, staring at the scrolling black-and-white words without reading them, counting the ticking seconds on the clock and wondering which  _ tick  _ marked Emilio and Krazy-8’s last moment alive.

* * *

The next day, they release him. He dresses in the stuff he came to the hospital in. He stares at Mr. White’s jacket for a long time, presses it to his face to inhale the comforting smell, and finally decides to pull it on.

The nurse calls Mr. White, tells him his son is ready to be taken home, and he leaves the hospital at Mr. White’s side with the guy chatting idly about schoolwork and his  _ real _ son and the weather and all sorts of boring bullshit like he wants Jesse to forget that he definitely murdered two men the night before.

When the Aztek’s door shuts behind him, Jesse asks, “Why didn’t they call my actual family?”

“Oh, I just told them I was your father and they believed me. So they called the cell number I’d given them.” Mr. White shrugs. “I guess they didn’t bother to fact-check.” After a pause he asks, “Did you want them to call your parents?”

Jesse isn’t actually sure, so he just picks idly at his pants and shrugs. Mr. White looks at him for a moment and then starts the car. “About the bill, I took care of it. Alright?”

He bites his split lip and very determinedly doesn’t think about how much money Krazy-8 probably had and manages a rough, “Thanks.”

Mr. White turns on the radio to some oldies station as he drives Jesse out of the hospital parking lot and back to his house. During some songs, Mr. White hums along, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Jesse knows he’d be smiling at how dorky it is if he didn’t feel so fucking dead inside.

After awhile, when he can’t take the normalcy anymore, he asks, “Mr. White?” His fingers idly toy with the zipper on the lame old man jacket that he’s still wearing. “Did you kill them?”

“Yes,” is the blunt answer he gets. He doesn’t ask for anymore details. He doesn’t want to know how or where, or if he dissolved them in acid, or if he just buried them out in the desert like Jack’s gang had done to Schrader and his partner.

Instead he just nods, looks out the window, and struggles with how normal it is for Mr. White to kill someone, and how normal it feels for Jesse to accept that. Mr. White had gotten his fix. He’d backslid already, and had taken one firm step towards becoming Heisenberg again - if he’d ever stopped.

Neither of them had changed after all. Not Jesse, and not Mr. White, and Jesse wants to get angry about it, wants to punch Mr. White’s face in until it matches his own, until it looked as fucked up as their souls must look, but instead he just feels tired.

Mr. White had said once that if Hell existed they’d both be going to it and he knows that’s true. It’s probably the truest thing that had ever come out of his mouth, and he’s just so goddamn  _ tired  _ of fighting this heavy shadow that hung over his entire life.

He bites hard on his lip to stop the hot tears welling up in his eyes and he forces his train of thought into something he can manage without wanting to punch something until his knuckles bled. After all, that’s what he always did before right? Found ways to rationalize to himself, somehow, someway, always finding a way to prove to himself that Mr. White was in the right for doing whatever fucked up thing he’d managed to pull off.

And just like that the situation shifts in his head.

It wasn’t Mr. White’s fault for killing them, he reasons.  _ He  _ was the one who wasn’t careful.  And in the end, did it really matter if they were dead or not? Jesse’s safe, Mr. White’s safe - that’s what matters. Emilio and Krazy-8 - it was just a slip up. Every addict has them, he justifies to himself. Jesse just has to hold on and support Mr. White. All he has to do is just  _ hold on. _

Mr. White pulls into Jesse’s driveway and leans over to unbuckle Jesse before he can.

“Dude, seriously, I’m not a kid,” he grumbles, getting out of the car before the guy can do something even stupider like opening up Jesse’s door and helping him out like a stuffy chauffeur.

“Sometimes you act like one,” Mr. White says, and it kinda sounds like a joke and he’s smiling like it was one so Jesse just shrugs back.

When Jesse steps into the house, he expects to have to clean up, maybe after a really long nap on the couch, but the place is spotless. It even looks like someone had come in with a mop or something because before the remodelling, his floors hadn’t looked this good in years, not since Aunt Ginny had talked him into doing it before she’d started losing her mind.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I did a little, uh… housekeeping,” Mr. White announces, walking over to the fridge and opening it up. “And I’ve pre-made some meals for you. You can just heat them up in their containers.” He pulls one out and shows it to Jesse, wiggling it enticingly. It’s lasagna in some clear glass bowl with a plastic lid. “Microwave safe.”

Jesse just stares and feels his throat get tight.

“And -” he’s not done, walking towards the stairs that lead up to Jesse’s bedroom and the main bathroom. Jesse follows slightly behind, pauses to take a peek into the fridge and sees about a dozen different meals all carefully packaged into glass containers. He must’ve gone out and bought them just for him because he can see a label or two still stuck on them.

“I took some liberties and cleaned up here as well. I found a lot of… Well. Er. Paraphernalia. So I threw it all out.” He gives Jesse a careful smile like he’s expecting him to lose it.

“You... tossed the drugs and shit?”

“Yes.” Mr. White spins around then and kinda scares the shit out of him, makes his heart skip a beat and his joints lock up, but the dude’s got his hands raised in a pacifying gesture so he tries to relax and calm his heartbeat down. “I still believe you when you said you hadn’t used, so that’s not - I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. So… That’s why.”

That tightness in his throat constricts even more to the point where he can’t even fucking talk and he’s really glad because the words that pop right to the tip of his tongue are, “I love you”, and he’s still so not ready to say that out loud. He steps unsteadily up to Mr. White and hugs him hard.

There’s no forgiveness. There’s no going back. And maybe neither of them had changed, but at least he still has this. He still has Mr. White looking out for him. And that’s enough for him, for once.

* * *

That night, he doesn’t dream of blood and horror. Instead, his dream begins with him floating peacefully in a sea that looks perfectly, crystal blue. But the colour doesn’t scare him like it usually does. It’s calming. There’s a soft fragrance blowing in on the wind that makes him want to fall asleep among the soft, rolling waves. When he looks to the side he can’t even tell when the ocean and the sky become one. He floats for a long time with no direction until a boat comes up to him.

He blinks and the next time he opens his eyes he’s on the boat. The sun is blazing down on him, without the cool of the ocean water to keep him from burning up. It’s  _ hot. _ All over him it’s burning like fire, and he’s pulling off all his clothes, dumping them in a pile on the deck of the boat.

From nowhere, there’s a broad pair of hands touching him, but he doesn’t feel scared. They’re strong, cooling him, protecting him. He feels safe. He tries to focus on who it is that’s touching him but the heat turns the image into a wavering mirage set against a blue sky.

The hands continue to run over him gently, rubbing along his back and petting his hair. He closes his eyes and leans into the embrace, deciding it doesn’t really matter who it is that’s touching him as long as it feels this nice. He stays motionless for a long time, letting himself be caressed. The hands move over his back, digging into the spots of stress until he feels utterly relaxed.

He’s heating up again, but it’s not as overwhelming as it was when he was alone under the sun. There’s a brief pain in his chest and when he looks down one of the hands are reaching inside of Jesse’s chest. It’s pulling open his ribs and pushing aside his lungs until he feels it touch his thumping heart and the pain goes away. Blood gushes around the hand, but it still doesn’t hurt. Actually, it kinda feels relieving, like there’s this unbearable pressure he never really realized was there in his chest that’s being released.

Blinking, his eyes manage to pieces the entire image together, sewing the jagged pieces into Mr. White. Jesse stares at him and follows his body down until he realizes it’s Mr. White’s hand wrapped around his heart, the other hand gently rubbing his tummy to soothe him.

He looks like Jesse’s used to, like the Mr. White that’s in his head with a shaved head and a goatee. His face looks softer than normal, though, not angry or stressed or calculating.

_ It’s alright now, Jesse,  _ Mr. White says, mouth moving but the words are spoken in his head rather than out loud.

Jesse shivers as Mr. White slowly starts tugging, urging his heart out of his chest. The blood pool has spread all around him now and when he looks to the side out of the corner of his eyes he sees the entire ocean is bloodied.

_ I love you. _

“I love you,” Jesse echoes mindlessly, saying it without really meaning to, and with a wet sound his heart gets pulled free from his ribs, a warm spray of blood spurting across Mr. White’s face as he holds the still beating heart in his palm. The relief he feels is so powerful that Jesse collapses bonelessly against the burning hot planks of the ship and the sky goes dark.

Blearily, he flutters his eyes and sees a ceiling above him. Gasping sharply, he sits up on the couch and clasps his hands to his chest, looking down in vague horror but he doesn’t see any red. No red. No blood. His hands come away damp with sweat rather than with viscera.

His head feels dizzy and light, like he’d just taken a hit of some unknown drug. He presses his palms hard enough against his chest he can feel his own heartbeat. What the fuck was that dream?

Limply, he lies back down, squirming from the sweat all over him, and shakily pulls Mr. White’s jacket off, grimacing at the dampness. After the older man had left, Jesse had deliberately not offered the jacket back, had worn it to sleep on the couch like a security blanket. His stomach twists as he plays the dream back in his head, and feeling slightly overwhelmed by the odd swell of emotion from it, he throws the jacket aside for Mr. White to pick up the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just love super thematic dreams, don't you? Next we will be getting into the actual dinner scene between Walt's family and Jesse, so stay tuned!


	9. Between a rock...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally we're here... Dinner.

He’s running late, missing the beginning of his daughter’s sonogram - not that he technically should know it’s a daughter yet. He’d gotten caught up comforting Jesse after he’d brought him home from the hospital. Walt’s still not exactly sure what he did that caused the little breakdown the boy had had in the hallway, but he’d hugged him and patted his back and stayed until Jesse’d calmed down.

To be honest, Walt hadn’t really wanted to leave Jesse there alone. He knew realistically and with utter certainty that Domingo and his brother wouldn’t be coming back for Jesse, but that didn’t stop him from feeling that somehow, someway, Jesse would get himself into trouble again if Walt wasn’t there. After all, it was only  _ one evening _ that Walt had been away, and that awful mess had happened. He’d always known Jesse was perpetually one foot in trouble, but the timing of it seemed almost like the universe was highlighting it for him.

The rational part of his mind knew that Jesse was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but then something like this would happen and some deep, instinctual part of Walt would rise up so powerfully that he couldn’t stop himself from protecting the boy.

But instead of hauling the boy along with him like a dog on a leash he settled with the fact that Jesse’s house was clean, that his fridge was properly full of decent food, and that he wouldn’t be unnecessarily tempted by the drugs littering the corners of his house while he was recovering. At least for now, until the kid met his family proper, that would have to be enough.

He steps into the room and sees Skyler gazing in awe at the screen. The blurry, black and white image shows the precious little gem she has in her womb, and he feels the same burst of utter joy he had the first time they’d been here.

“Hey,” she greets, holding her hand out to him. “What took you?”

He answers unthinkingly. “I was just over at Jesse’s.” His brain pauses for a moment and then tries to come up with an explanation that isn’t, ‘he was beaten bloody by a gangbanger and I felt like I should take care of him’. “He… hasn’t been feeling well, so I brought around some food and helped clean up a bit.”

Her hand slips back away from him. “Jesse’s, huh?” The odd tilt to her voice makes him a little uneasy, but when he looks at her in the corner of his eyes she’s staring at the sonogram image still.

* * *

Only a few days later, Walt finds himself roped into setting up Holly’s room, and staring at Marie and Skyler in shocked silence. Junior’s off to the side, glancing at them not-so-subtly in between his half-hearted attempts at painting the nursery wall.

“Tonight?”

Marie claps her hands. “Hank’s free, no big cases, I don’t have - well, anything! And I just thought it would be nice to finally have time to sit down, have a nice little get together, and meet this student of yours!”

“Ex-student,” he corrects dimly.

“Ex-student,” she parrots back cheerfully.

“Don’t you think a bit more, er, advance warning would have been nice? What if he has plans?” He doubts Jesse did have plans; he didn’t seem to have done much of anything for the past few weeks except wait around at home and now text him idly throughout the day once Walt had opened that channel of communication.

Marie pouts. “You won’t even ask him?”

Skyler is glaring at the wall Junior’s pretending to paint, and Walt feels that somehow it’s aimed at him. They still haven’t shared the news about his diagnosis, and he knows she’s becoming increasingly bitter about him spending all his free time with a kid she’s never even met, especially now when he  _ should _ be focusing on getting treatment.

As for the family dinner, it absolutely, positively cannot happen. Jesse’s face is a mess. What is he going to say about that? He’s certain that his family’s already strained blessing would be rescinded if they found out the truth behind Jesse’s beating, if he could even avoid Hank finding out he was Emilio’s partner to begin with. He can’t have this happen until at least a few weeks from now, but just by looking at Marie’s face he can tell that’s out of the question.

“Why don’t I ask him and see if we can do it next week?” Maybe by then the swelling will have gone down some more.

“Why don’t you call him right now and ask him?” Skyler’s voice has a sharp bite to it, and she’s still glaring at the wall.

His brow furrows as he watches her back and tense shoulders.

“Well?” she snaps, turning around. Junior’s completely given up pretending and he’s watching the two of them with just as much interest as Marie.

“... Alright.” He raises his hands in defeat. “Alright.” He pulls his cell out of his pocket, flips it open to see a text from Jesse that reads,  **what do u do with a dead chemist? …… u barium** . He snorts at it despite the somewhat morbid connotation with their past relationship.

He manages to type in Jesse’s number and put the phone to his ear before anyone can ask him what he found so funny. It rings very briefly before Jesse picks up.

“Hey, Mr. White!” Jesse greets excitedly. He can hear some upbeat music in the background interspersed with some little jingles and tunes and surmises that Jesse is in the middle of playing a game. “So did you like my joke?”

“I suppose so,” Walt concedes drily, turning away from his family. Somehow, talking to Jesse feels extremely personal, like it shouldn’t be shared with people that didn’t -  _ couldn’t _ \- understand the two of them. “Actually, I wasn’t calling to discuss your sense of humour.”

“Oh? Something wrong?” Jesse’s voice sounds worried now, and the little sounds on the other end of the line quieten. Before Walt can answer, he hears a soft, “Oh… You can’t come over tonight?”

“That’s not - listen. You remember how I told you the other day my family was wanting to meet you?”

Marie makes an encouraging sound behind him, and when he looks at her she gives him a wide grin and thumbs up. Skyler is watching him cooly.

“Yeah, I remember…”

“Well, my sister-in-law -”

“The purple lady right?”

“What?” Oh, right. Jesse must have been in their house just before… He blinks away the memories of To’hajiilee. “Er, yeah. Anyways, she’s asking if you’re free. Tonight.”

Jesse makes an odd panicked sound. “My - yo, my face isn’t exactly model quality right now, you know!”

Walt’s lips thin out and he feels bubbles of anger and satisfaction that war with themselves briefly. Domingo and his cousin stepped out of line and were cut down. It’s over. He relaxes and simply says, “I know.”

“Then - so what? What’re you calling me f-... Oh, they’re making you, right?”

“Yes.”

“And they’re totally listening right now.”

Jesse’s quick on the update when he wants to be. “They are.”

There’s a period of quiet as Jesse absorbs the situation, and Marie pipes up loudly, “We’d love to have you, Jesse!”

“Uh, what do you want me to do? What should I do? Isn’t it bad if I meet them like this? Not that it would’ve been a good idea for me to meet them in the first place, yo, but…” He can picture it now - Jesse biting at his nails and looking like a deer caught in headlights.

“Oh,” he says a bit too cheerfully, “you can’t make it? That’s too bad.”

There’s a gust of relief over the phone from Jesse until Skyler’s hand is suddenly pulling the phone out of his hand. “Wh - Skyler!”

“Hello,” she smiles into the cell phone with forced politeness, her eyes aiming daggers at Walt as if just daring him to try and take the phone back. “We’re having dinner at seven. Why don’t you come over just for a bit, and then you can get back to whatever you’re just so  _ busy _ with?”

Walt watches as she nods. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, but I’m sure a nice home cooked dinner and some company is just what you need.”

At this point he’s almost a little shocked that Marie and Junior don’t each have a bucket of popcorn in their hands since they both happen to look they’re watching an exciting moment in a drama movie. It’s almost embarrassing that they’re not even trying to hide it.

“Skyler, will you please -” He makes a weak attempt to get the phone back but is afraid of acting too defensive of Jesse. The whole point is to prevent suspicions, after all, and it sounds like Jesse’s doing his best to throw the dinner intervention out the window.

“Oh, no! No trouble at all, Jesse, a friend of Walt’s is a friend of ours.” Her ability to sound so friendly and cold at the same time is truly impressive.

She nods at the phone for a few seconds. “Sounds perfect. We’ll see you for seven.” She slowly hands the phone back to Walt and walks out of the room without saying another word, Marie following her with wide and excited eyes.

He motions for Junior to follow so that he's left alone in Holly’s room before he puts the phone back to his ear. “Jesse.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. White, but I tried, I really did but your wife is seriously -” Jesse makes a strange  _ kwsh _ sound.

“I know,” he agrees quietly, keeping his voice low to avoid someone listening in. Skyler and Marie were both still so similar despite their many differences. They were like pitbulls, grabbing onto something and never letting go until they got what they wanted - or until the thing was torn into shreds. “We’ll have to just… make do.”

“Wh-What’s my cover story? Like, I can’t just say ‘oh yeah, my old meth making partner beat the shit out of me’ and think that’s gonna go over fine!” He’s beginning to sound a little hysterical.

“Someone broke in. That’s the truth.”

“Oh sure, yeah, and then it’ll your brother-in-law will be all like ‘why didn’t you report it’ and I can’t tell the truth then, can I? Shit, shit,  _ shit. _ I’m screwed.”

They certainly are screwed. Jesse’s right, all it would take is Hank looking into it for the believability to dissolve even though it’s the truth. After all, why not report it unless you had something to hide?

“You… got into a fight with an old customer who didn’t like that you were out of the business.”

“Dude. Isn’t the whole point to stop them from freaking out that you’re hanging with me? If they think that I could get the shit kicked out of me at any point, then like… That’s not safe for you.” Jesse snickers a bit. “Too bad they don’t know you’re the real danger around here.”

“That’s not funny.” But Walt can’t help but feel his ego boost a little.

“Whatever… You got any better ideas?”

He throws out a few more only for Jesse to shoot them down every time. “Well, what would you suggest then, Jesse? Because it seems like there’s no right way.”

He can hear the pout in Jesse’s voice when he says, “Don’t get angry at me, man.” He hears a long, exaggerated sigh come through the phone. “Um, how about… I tried getting with some girl who’s already with this like really big, scary guy, and I got my ass handed to me ‘cause I got in his business.”

Walt opens his mouth to argue mostly because Jesse’d argued with him, but then he closes it. It’s not drug related, at least. “Fine.”

“You liked it?” Jesse asks.

“It’s workable.”

Jesse sounds exceptionally pleased when he says, “I can think of smart plans too sometimes.”

Walt doesn’t deign that with a response - he already knows how intelligent Jesse can be when he applies himself. It’s not like the kid has to prove anything. “Just try to be presentable, alright? I’ll see you here at seven.”

“Yeah, yeah. Bye, Mr. White.” There’s a pause then as though the boy’s expecting something else from him, but when he doesn’t say anything further Jesse sighs quietly and ends the call.

* * *

Marie, who’d headed back home earlier to freshen up and grab the casserole and salad she’d made, returns with Hank at around 6:30. Skyler had been oddly quiet the entire day, not even acknowledging when Walt volunteered to do the cooking that night.

Even Junior’d picked up on it, asking Walt surreptitiously if something was wrong, and there certainly seems to be something eating at Skyler but what it is, Walt has no clue.

They bustle around the kitchen and the patio out back, getting everything put together for dinner. It’s easier this time, seeing Hank. He doesn’t get the urge to run and puke in the bathroom at the very least, and he’s even managing to keep up a fairly normal conversation. His greatest strength always was compartmentalization.

When the knock comes at the door just before seven, Walt’s too slow to be the one to open the door. Almost in slow motion, he watches helplessly in the living room as Skyler opens the front door with a plastic smile on her face, and even more slowly, watches as the smile dissolves into a look of shock.

“Oh my god, are you okay?”

“Um,” he hears Jesse start to stammer, “Yeah, I-I’m good, yo.”

Skyler stares for a second longer before snapping back to herself. “Alright, uh, well, why don’t you come in?” As she steps out of the way for Jesse she turns her head to Walt with an expression that clearly says she’s already displeased.

Jesse’s face is still very swollen, the purple and red bruising spreading across it. The cuts have shrunk a bit, but it still looks painful. He’s got new clothing on, though. Looks more like he did when he was working with Mike, when his clothes had started being two sizes too big rather than five. Walt wonders briefly if he went out shopping just to impress his family.

“Hello, Jesse,” Walt greets, reaching out and rubbing Jesse’s arm.

Jesse grins a little shyly at him before his eyes glide past Walt’s shoulders and his expression locks down. A quick glance back and - yeah. It’s Hank. He’s not sure if Jesse’s scared because Hank once left Jesse looking exactly like this, or if Jesse’s remembering what happened out there in the desert. He tightens his grip on Jesse’s arm until he’s sure it’s almost painful. The last thing he wants right now is for the boy to start panicking.

“Why don’t you grab a seat, son?” The term of endearment pops out before he can stop it, and in his periphery he notices Skyler turn her head sharply towards him. But Jesse refocuses on him and nods, slowly walking with him past Hank to the patio.

The kid stiffens even more when Marie nearly knocks into them at the sliding doors.

“Oh my gosh!” Marie slaps a hand over her mouth, looks at Walt who gives her a sharp  _ Act Nice _ glare, and then she plasters a smile on her face and says, with more warmth than he expected her to have, “It’s so nice to meet you. My name’s Marie! I am so excited that I’m going to finally get to learn all about the student -”

“Ex-student,” he corrects on instinct.

“- ex-student that Walt’s been helping!” She scrunches her expression as she grins, and then moves past them into the house.

“I can’t do this,” Jesse whispers, quivering a bit under Walt’s hand.

“You can. You just have to sit, answer some questions, and then you can go home, okay?”

“I’ll puke if I eat anything,” Jesse promises weakly. “I - I haven’t been able to eat anything all day. Seriously, I almost passed out when I went and got these clothes... I keep feeling like I’m gonna throw my entire stomach up.”

There’s a lecture about eating healthy sitting on Walt’s tongue but he swallows it back. “You don’t have to eat anything if you don’t want to. And if it gets to be too much just… You can go to the bathroom whenever you need to if you feel like you’re going to… You know.”

Jesse opens his mouth, looking miserable, but they’re interrupted.

“Dad, mom wants your help with dinner,” Junior says, stepping outside. Like the leather jacket had burned him, Walt’s hand flies off of Jesse’s arm and he takes a step away. Jesse gives him a panicked look.

“Er, alright, I’ll go in and…” he trails off. Is he going to leave Jesse alone out here with Junior, or haul him inside where Hank and Marie are?

Junior gives him a light push. Alright. Looks like he’s leaving them alone out here. “I’ll just be a few minutes,” he says over his shoulder and tries not to feel bad when Jesse looks like he’d just thrown him in front of a bus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The whole family has a nice sit down next chapter. Thank you for all your kudos and comments! They fuel me


	10. ... And a hard place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My little baby has finally hit double digits... Thanks for reading! Enjoy the second half of our disaster dinner scene :)

This fucking sucks. It’s just plain shitty, no two ways about it. It’s probably the worst damn thing he’s suffered through in the past month and that’s including getting his shit kicked in by Emilio and Krazy-8.

He’s stuck sitting in a wicker chair across from Mr. White’s son with an aching face that everyone keeps freaking out at and Mr. White had left him alone to just deal with it. He considers puking in the pristine looking pool just to get some revenge but he just takes some deep breaths to soothe his roiling nerves.

“S-So…” the kid across from him starts. Jesse already wants to go home and get drunk. “How old are you?”

At least he didn’t ask what attacked his face. “24.” His birthday had actually come and passed a little while ago and he’d let it go by without as much as a word. He hadn’t celebrated his birthday since Aunt Ginny died. His parents didn’t give a shit, each year just marking more embarrassments. Whatever. He’d gotten what he wanted this year anyways: a nice dinner cooked by Mr. White and some quiet time with just the two of them on the couch watching some stupid show.

Now that he thinks about it, he’s not even sure if Mr. White knows when his birthday is. He’d never asked.

“Oh, cool.” Then the kid just falls silent, nodding idly at the table.

Wow, is it awkward out here or is it just him?

“So, uh, should I call you - like, Walt?” Saying that name is real bizarre. He’s only ever said it when he was super pissed off at Mr. White.

“No, that’s weird. Y-you can call me Junior, I guess.” The kid - Junior - shrugs and leaves it at that.

“Yeah, it is kinda weird,” Jesse agrees. He’s not sure what possessed them to name their kid after Mr. White to begin with. He’s always found that to be kind of a strange thing to do, but whatever. At the very least his own name isn’t Adam Jr., and that’s something to be grateful for.

Junior grins in agreement and then points at Jesse’s wrist where his tattoo is poking out slightly beyond his jacket sleeve. “What’s that?”

“Um, it’s a tattoo of a scorpion. I think. I got it when I was -” he stops himself before he says high. “... Well, I just got it because it looked cool.” He pulls his sleeve back a bit further so Junior can take a closer look.

“Nice,” Junior says approvingly. “M-Mom says that thugs get tattoos.”

He shoves his sleeve back down and hopes that no one else saw it. When he peeks past the kid into the house, Mr. White and the other three are all talking together. Mr. White’s moving his hands animatedly, Mrs. White looks like she’s ready to take a knife out and attack someone, and he can’t see the expressions on the Schraders’ faces.

“I think they’re cool though.” Junior’s still talking to him.

“Um… Yeah they’re cool. Anyone can get them. My aunt had a tattoo of like, a daisy, and she _definitely_ was not a thug, yo.” It’s hard to focus on what he’s saying when he’s watching the argument going on in the house.

Junior seems to pick up that something’s wrong and turns around. “They’ve been acting so weird,” Junior confides, frowning at the four of them through the glass doors.

“Yeah, well, I don’t think they’re happy your dad’s been like… Hanging out with me.”

“He’s helping you though, right? Even though he’s over at your house a lot… I mean,” Junior turns back to him, looking like he’s the most sensible person in the world, “why can’t you just come to our house? Th-then maybe they’d be less -” Junior makes a hand motion to indicate “crazy”.

Oh, hell no. He’d been pinned into a corner by Mrs. White into coming here today, sure, and he’d managed to cool it a bit when Mr. White grabbed his arm, but he’d definitely freak the fuck out if he was forced to come here again.

“I think it would be fine if you hung out here,” Junior confidently says. “Mom might be mad about it, but that’s fine. Do you play video games?”

Jesse’s getting whiplash. “Uh, yeah. I guess.”

“What ones do you like?”

He picks at the skin around his thumbnail. Before he’d gone through all the shit in the past two years, he’d have said anything with a lot of guns and action. GTA, Resident Evil, any shit like that. But now he feels like he’s gonna pass out when he sees blood, even if he knows it’s fake.

He shrugs. “I kinda like… I dunno. Chill games.”

Junior nods, looking thoughtful. “Me and my friend Louis play a l-lot of multi-player games together. M-maybe if you came over you could play something with us.”

Jesse smiles for real at that. It kinda sucks he never got to meet Junior before they came back. “Sounds fun, yo, but I seriously think your mom would kill me.”

Before Junior can press him on that anymore, the glass doors slide open and the four are bringing out drinks and food in a strained silence.

Schrader and his wife are looking at Junior - he’s surprised that the DEA agent hasn’t already started grilling him, but no one even seems interested in him anymore. He thanks God for a second - but now he’s thrown off balance, because he’s not sure why they’ve changed targets.

He meets eyes with Mr. White and tries to ask him like, telepathically, but he just shakes his head.

“Um…” Junior starts, looking uncomfortable. “Wh-what’s wrong?”

“We’ll talk after dinner, sweetheart,” Mrs. White smiles stiffly. She takes a few spoons and starts dishing some food out in the pure silence, Mrs. Schrader helping out by pouring water in the cups. Jesse waves his hands “no” but he gets water and food anyways.

Mr. White moves to take the seat next to Jesse but Mrs. White sits there first, looking almost mad which means he's stuck sitting in between Mrs. Schrader and Mrs. White as he awkwardly sips his water.

After a minute of the rest of the group eating in silence and him drinking water, Jesse jumps when Schrader jerks in his seat and shouts, “Ouch!” The guy’s face is twisted almost comically in pain and he’s rubbing his leg under the table. “Will you cut that shit out Marie?”

The lady next to him just pinches her mouth and not so subtly jabs her fork towards Jesse.

Schrader sighs. “Yeah, yeah, alright already.” He spans his hands out. “So, uh, Pinkman. Heard through the grapevine that you’ve been around the block a few times, hm?” He raises and eyebrow but Jesse doesn’t react. “Nothin’? Alright.” He gives Mr. White a side-eye and says, “Our friend here’s been involved in some pretty heavy duty drugs.” He laughs and says, “Meth heads are always the worst of ‘em, Walt, I gotta say.”

Mr. White nods slowly. “Yes, I know he - in the past, mind you - was involved with methamphetamines.”

Junior’s eyebrows shoot up as Mrs. Schrader gasps. Mrs. White just looks disgusted, but her expression is aimed at Mr. White instead of him for some reason.

“So, y-you’re like, a gangster?” Junior asks, sounding just a tiny sliver shy of being impressed. “Is that why your face is…”

“Um,” Jesse stalls. His eyes flicker towards Mr. White again, desperate for some support but the guy’s staring at his wife with an odd expression on his face. He’s getting the nauseous feeling building up in his belly again, but he fights it down and tries to remember his cover story. “Nah, I, uh, I tried, um… Dating some cute girl but it turned out she had a boyfriend already. So… He…” Jesse gestures to his face.

“ _Dating_ ,” Mrs. White scoffs even as Junior looks delighted.

“Wow,” Mrs. Schrader says sympathetically. “That must hurt a lot. Do you need an aspirin or anything?”

“I’m good. It doesn’t hurt that bad anyways.” Jesse jolts and quickly adds on, “Thanks though.”

Schrader snorts in laughter. “Yeah, tough guy. I bet this is one of those ‘you should see the other guy’ situations, huh?” He nudges Junior a bit roughly and the kid laughs along. “Well, anyways, as much as I’m dying to hear more about your love life, I’d really love to hear about why in the hell I should believe you’re trying to get clean and not, I don’t know… Trying to scam Walt here.”

He looks at Mr. White again. The guy’s got a beer in his hands and he’s frowning at Schrader like he’s about to give him a piece of his mind. Jesse relaxes for a second but when the expected interruption from Mr. White doesn’t happen, he’s left floundering.

“I-I- uh,” he stammers and then screws his jaw shut. He’s definitely going to puke. The second he opens his mouth he’s going to _definitely_ puke all over the table and everything’s gonna be ruined.

Unexpectedly, before he can do anything, Junior helps him out. “D-Dad’s, not dumb. And Jesse’s nice. Why don’t you guys just… b-back off? It’s not like Dad’s gonna die ‘cause he’s helping someone.”

Jesse wants to hug the kid right then and there and maybe offer to pay for a tattoo for him but then he hears a sniffle next to him. In horror, Jesse turns to his right and sees Mrs. White dabbing at her weepy eyes with a napkin.

Mrs. Schrader is up and comforting her before he can react, and across from him Mr. White is passing across some more napkins as the crying gets louder.

“Okay. W-What the _hell_ is going on?” Junior asks, grabbing his crutches and standing up, eyes wide and worried.

Mrs. White gets up too and heads inside with her sister rubbing her back gently. “Why don’t you ask your father?” she answers in between her sobs, sounding viciously angry. They close the glass doors behind them, leaving the four of them outside.

Schrader looks like he’s just been given the choice between a pit of snakes and a pack of wolves and sits there looking distinctly uncomfortable. In that exact moment, Jesse relates to the DEA agent more than perhaps he’s ever related to anyone.

Why is he doomed to have the worst, most awkward and tense dinners ever when he’s at Mr. White’s house? Is he just cursed?

“Dad?” Junior asks, sounding scared.

Mr. White’s rubbing his forehead, expression pinched like it gets when he’s stuck in shit with no way out. “Son, I’ve got to tell you something. I told your aunt and uncle earlier, but…”

Oh, shit. Jesse knows all of a sudden, like a switch got flipped, what they’d been arguing about earlier inside. They had been talking about his cancer and Junior was the only one who didn’t know.

“Walt, wait a sec, should this -” Schrader interrupts, jerking a thumb at Jesse “- uh, _guy_ be here for this?” Jesse appreciates that Schrader didn’t call him a shitstain or a meth head or something.

Mr. White waves his hand dismissively. “It’s fine.” He turns to his kid and says in the quiet, soft voice he uses when he’s talking Jesse down from a panic attack, “I was diagnosed with lung cancer a few weeks ago.”

For a moment, the only sound is the wind playing along the water of the pool.

“Wh-what?”

Mr. White gets up and hugs Junior, murmuring things as the kid stands there looking like the world is ending, head shaking like he could just deny what he’d just heard. Jesse puts his face in his hands. He feels so bad for the kid. It had been one of the worst fucking days of his life learning that his aunt had cancer. Knowing that she barely had any time left.

A slide of glass on glass alerts Jesse to the fact that Schrader had slid a beer over to him. Looks like the guy was so uncomfortable with the father-son hug session behind him that he’d even buddy up with a junkie.

Whatever. He needs this right now. So he takes it, pops the cap off and chugs it down and doesn’t even care that it’s got the DEA agent’s ugly mug plastered on it.

A part of him supposes he should be glad that the heat was taken off of him and shoved onto Mr. White instead, but the mention of the cancer makes him feel worse if that’s even possible. The guy hadn’t brought up cooking meth again since his meltdown over Gus that one night, but he knows that it’s only a matter of time until the dam breaks and Mr. White feels like he doesn’t have a choice anymore.

Maybe this fucked up dinner would be enough to push him over the edge. Jesse doesn’t know and he doesn’t wanna know.

He bites the inside of his cheek until he stops feeling like he’s gonna cry and sorta selfishly wishes Mr. White was hugging him instead of Junior. He grabs another of Schrader’s beers and chugs it.

He downs four of them in total before Schrader stops handing them over. Mr. White had taken his son back inside a few minutes ago, leaving him alone out here _again_ and with someone even worse than before. He swears on his life that it’ll be a cold day in hell before he agrees to having dinner with the White-Schrader family again.

“Alright, listen up scumbag,” Schrader starts quietly, leaning forward with a grim expression on his face. It’s kind of lacklustre compared to Mr. White’s but he leans back away anyways just to make it seem like he’s scared. “I don’t give a shit if you’ve convinced Walt you’re on the straight and narrow, I know your kind and I know you people don’t change. If you ever - _ever_ \- fuck with my brother, I will end you. You get me?”

“I get you,” Jesse confirms, staring down at his empty bottles.

Schrader sits back up straight. “Good. Now get lost. It’s family time.” They stand up at the same time and he’s all but marched to the front door and shoved out without a chance to see Mr. White. He can hear Mrs. White’s crying from behind a closed door somewhere down the hall past the kitchen.

After he gets in his car, he manages to drive a block away before he has to pull over and throw up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: some emotional fallout.


	11. Entropy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just love prophetic dreams. Sorry again for the wait! hoping to get things back on track. I think we're near the middle/two-thirds-ish through the story I have in mind now. enjoy!

For the next day he ignores Mr. White’s texts and calls. He’d gotten home from the fucking awful dinner, feeling and probably looking like absolute shit, and so tired he felt like he’d sleep for a year. And for the first time in weeks, he went upstairs and slept in his untouched bed. Mr. White had washed and made the bed for him before he’d come back from the hospital, and it looks just as pristine as he left it.

Sometime in the afternoon, after a dozen unanswered texts asking how he’s doing and a handful of missed calls, Mr. White leaves him a voicemail.

“Jesse, I… don’t know if you’re upset with me, but I’d like to hear from you. If you can just let me know if I can come see you, I’d appreciate it. Alright? Please?” There’s a pause. “I love you. Bye.”

Curled up in the blankets, refusing to get up to eat or shower or anything, he lies there and listens to the voicemail over and over until his phone dies. He doesn’t have the energy to get up and charge it so he doesn’t, and just replays the words in his head until they lose meaning and he falls asleep.

His nightmares are terrible.

It’s dark. No matter where he turns there's no light he can find, stumbling blindly through the void until a burst of blue light cracks over him. It's so brilliant that it hurts to look at, but at the very least it's not dark anymore. He can suffer a bit of pain as long as he's not wandering aimlessly.

Now he can see that there's blue crystals growing out of everything around him, and with a chill he sees reflected in their surfaces the faces of everyone who’d died in the past two years. He sees Jane's face, Gale's, Emilio's, Drew Sharp's,  _ everyone _ . Abruptly, he wishes he actually  _ couldn’t _ see anymore, wishes the light would go away so he could return to the darkness where he wouldn’t be forced to see them.

When he looks down, he sees his shadow is warped and oily, shifting and moving around his feet and he sees his own face reflected in it. Struck by a sudden bone-deep jolt of fear, he can’t breathe, and he starts trying to run away from his shadow but his legs won’t move quickly enough, like it's weighing him down, keeping him in place.

He struggles and struggles and struggles, and finally - he breaks free of it for a split second, running wildly through a hot desert away from the blue crystals, but before he can relax he feels his hands tugged and tied together with cold metal.

He slams into the ground. All around him, metal rises up until it obscures the crystal blue light. Gradually, it closes further and further in on him, like he’s trapped in a tank or bin of some kind. He can’t do anything with his hands trapped and being too scared to think. When he pushes against the metal with his tied hands, bloods run down it, pooling in the metal capsule until it comes up high enough to nearly drown him. He stop pushing and just sits in the dark and cries.

As the metal presses further in against him and blood gushes around his head, the deafening sound of a gun firing shatters the world around him and he falls into darkness.

He wakes up screaming, kicking at his sheets, feeling like he’s falling.

He’s covered in sweat, heart pounding. His mouth feels full of cotton - he’s so fucking thirsty, but he’s shaking so badly he’s positive that he’d fall flat on his face if he tried getting up.

Before he can even untangle himself from the sheets, he hears a pounding of feet up the stairs towards his room. His heart feels ready to explode, speeding back up to mach-10 as he imagines Emilio there again, or Schrader, or  _ someone _ who’s come to beat the shit out of him - kill him - but then Mr. White throws himself into the room looking just as scared as Jesse must.

“Jesse, are you okay?” Mr. White asks, practically running across the room to him.

He blinks a few times and rubs at his chest where he thinks he can actually feel his heart beating its way out of his ribs. “What…?” Mr. White is already pulling the sheets away from him before quickly going to his bathroom and grabbing a towel, and then coming back to wipe at his forehead. Jesse shivers as the breeze from his open window runs across his sweaty body.

“You need anything?” One of Mr. White’s hands runs through Jesse’s damp hair, gently stroking it and pushing it back from his forehead. It feels really nice.

Somewhere from downstairs he can smell bacon. He stares at Mr. White’s pinched and worried face. “Am I still asleep?”

Mr. White’s forehead crinkles. “Are you feeling alright, son?” The hand in his hair pulls away and a wrist presses gently to his face. “No fever…” Mr. White studies him for a second and he still hasn’t figured out what’s going on so he doesn’t complain when Mr. White makes him stand up and get out of bed.

A warm hand wraps around one of his and leads him to the bathroom.

“Okay, I want you to have a quick shower, get changed, and then why don’t you come on downstairs and get something to eat? Yeah?” Mr. White rubs his thumb over Jesse’s hand for a moment until Jesse catches up and nods. “Good,” Mr. White murmurs, letting his hand fall. Then the guy presses a quick kiss to the side of his face, tingling against his bruises, and vanishes around the corner, heading back downstairs.

Dazed, Jesse strips down and quickly washes off. It feels nice to get all the sweat and sleep off of him. He even takes a minute to brush the gross feeling out of his mouth before heading downstairs too, carefully peering around the corner and seeing Mr. White humming as he cuts the crust off a sandwich.

He must put his weight down too much because the floor creaks and Mr. White turns to look at him. “Hey, how are you feeling now?”

Jesse itches his throat and steps into the open. “... Thirsty, I guess. What are you doing here?”

Mr. White grabs a cup out of a cupboard and fills it with some water, handing it to Jesse before he answers. “I got worried when you didn’t answer. I waited a full day, you know, and I just…” He waves a hand vaguely. “I just got worried,” he repeats lamely.

With a few gulps he finishes off the glass of water, passing it back to Mr. White to refill. “Did you break in or what?”

“I… found a way in, yes.”

He kinda feels like he should be mad about that, Mr. White invading his privacy. One of the times he did that, the love of his life had died choking on her own vomit. But he feels less like shit now that he’s out of bed, so he just shrugs it off. And what did it even matter if he got mad now? He'd just start an argument with Mr. White over something raw and painful and he didn't want that.

“You break it, you buy it, man,” he settles on instead, casually leaning against the counter.

Mr. White rolls his eyes. “I didn’t break anything. Now,” he announces, clapping his hands, “it’s lunch time. Sit down so we can eat.” He turns away, grabbing the plates and setting them on the table.

He sits down and starts eating the sandwich like told. It’s got crispy bacon, tomato, and avocado in it. It tastes really fucking awesome. He almost doesn’t chew the first bite he’s so fucking hungry.

Mr. White frowns at him as he takes the seat next to him. “Did you eat anything yesterday?” When Jesse doesn’t say anything, Mr. White sighs. He sounds disappointed when he scolds him, “You have to take better care of yourself, Jesse.”

He sounds so sincere that Jesse can’t stop himself from apologizing. “I’m sorry, Mr. White. I just… I wasn’t feeling super hot after I came home from your place.”

Mr. White picks at his own plate. “I’m sorry it went so poorly. I didn’t expect Skyler to…” He waves a hand to dispel the image of her weeping openly.

Jesse doesn’t know what to say so he shrugs and looks down at his half-eaten sandwich, then tilts his head curiously. “How come you cut the crusts off?” It’s almost kinda… cute. He’d noticed Mr. White did it to all his lunches every day in Gus’ superlab and even in their mobile lab with Vamonos Pest but he’d never really thought about it before.

“Oh. No real reason. Just…” The guy shrugs and goes quiet.

Jesse’s just about dying of curiosity now. It hadn’t been a big deal, but just that little flaunt of a potential secret has him fired up. “No reason? Seriously?”

“You’ll think it’s strange.”

“No I won’t. Come on. Please?”

Mr. White sighs as his shoulders slump and he gives in. His face looks wistful and grave at the same time. He picks up his own sandwich and starts talking. “When Domingo was down in your basement, chained to the support, I would’ve done just about anything to convince myself to let him go. It’s kind of funny, how things have changed huh? Back then, I wanted so badly to find an excuse not to kill. Towards the end, it seemed like I was finding every excuse  _ to _ kill.”

It’s not funny. Neither of them laugh. Jesse doesn't bother pointing out how he murdered again with next to no point just a week ago, and hears phantom coughing coming through the grate. He can picture Krazy-8 down there so crystal clear in his head it’s like he’s down there right now, like he could go open up his basement door and see him down there.

He’s not sure why Mr. White is talking about this, but he keeps listening silently.

“Anyways. I brought him food and water to keep him alive - you know that. I noticed by chance that Domingo had pulled the crusts off of a sandwich I brought him one time. It was like I was seeing him for the first time when I saw that. Like he wasn’t just some dangerous killer. He was  _ human. _ I started cutting the crusts off before I brought them down. He… talked to me a lot. You know, he was the first person I told about my diagnosis?”

Jesse feels a little ill, picturing it. Mr. White, confiding in someone who’d kill him without a second thought. Someone who he’d ended up killing himself. After he’d fucked up melting Emilio he’d run away to the Crystal Palace like a coward, leaving Mr. White alone to do the dirty deed. What did a fucking coin toss matter, really? Now he wishes he’d stayed. He puts the sandwich down and keeps listening.

“He told me where he went to school, about his family, his father’s store… We bought Junior’s crib at that store. It was like God was telling me to spare him. I’d actually collapsed at some point while bringing him down his sandwich, and the plate shattered. When I noticed that a shard of the plate was missing, and figured out that he’d taken it to stab me with, my hopes to release him… Just like that, they vanished. And I knew it was him or me. So I strangled him to death with the bike lock.”

Mr. White coughs then, hard, like  _ he’s _ being strangled, coughs until Jesse’s scared he’ll see blood, but eventually it stops and there’s no red on Mr. White’s lips when he’s done.

“After that, something inside me compelled me to keep cutting the crusts of my sandwiches. I’ve never really thought about it, but it just feels wrong to not do it.”

Jesse doesn’t know how to feel about that story. It feels like he knows Mr. White a hell of a lot better now somehow, has seen an old, unseen wound that had long since scarred over. He hadn’t cared back then about what happened to Krazy-8. When he’d come home, every last piece of evidence was gone except for his bottomed out bathtub, like nothing had ever happened. Knowing all this now, it feels like Mr. White’s performing some… ritual, or something, to keep Krazy-8 alive like he’d wished he could.

“I’m sorry.”

“About what?” Mr. White doesn’t even sound upset.

Jesse looks over and Mr. White’s eating with gusto. He looks down at his half-eaten meal and thinks about Krazy-8 dying down in his basement. “I’m sorry you had to kill him again. Because of me… Again.”

“Oh. It was easier this time, actually. It was more like he was already dead and I just had to remind him.”

Jesse shudders at how casually he says it, like it makes total sense, like it was  _ natural _ to have to kill Kraze and Emilio again.

Mr. White wraps an arm over him, pulling him into an awkward side hug. “And to be clear, it wasn’t your fault, Jesse. Sometimes things have to be done, and if I have to do them, then… As long as you’re safe - as long as my  _ family  _ is safe, I’m willing to do whatever I have to.”

“Even cook meth?” Jesse asks before he can stop himself.

Mr. White pulls his arm back. “What are you saying now?” He sounds annoyed.

Jesse pokes at his plate. “Your whole family knows about your cancer now. It’s only a matter of time until you gotta start finding a way to get money to do treatment. It’s been weeks now, and you haven’t found a way yet, right?”

With a shuddering chill, he wonders if maybe Mr. White’s just thrown the idea of getting chemo out the window altogether. “You need money so you don’t die and you haven’t found a different way.”

“I promised you that I would find a way without cooking meth. What else do you want from me?”

He doesn’t know. There’s nothing that can keep Mr. White from doing what he’ll do, whatever he thinks he has to in order to protect him and his family, not unless the guy was dead. He shrugs, hopes that Mr. White will just let it go and put his arm around him again but instead the guy’s pushing away from the table looking irritated.

“Jesse, I have done nothing to make you think I’ve started cooking, have I?”

Jesse shakes his head ‘no’ and keeps eating his Krazy-8 sandwich.

But Mr. White doesn’t let it go. “So, what exactly is your problem now? I know you were upset that I had to take care of your friend and Domingo, but I thought we’d moved past that. If you really don’t trust me that much, just say so.” Mr. White’s voice is strained with anger.

Jesse really wishes he had the common sense to know when to shut the fuck up before he pissed him off.

Mr. White starts timing his breaths, in and out, slowly, and when he’s calmed down, he gives Jesse a short wave as he heads towards the front door. “I’m going to head out now, Jesse. Make sure you eat properly. Have a good rest of the day.”

He’s gone before Jesse can say anything. In a trance, he finishes his meal, washes the dishes mechanically, and then goes and lays down on the couch, staring at the ceiling. He lays there and waits for Mr. White to come back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll be having an interim next chapter to look back in on some other characters. thank you all for your comments and kudos!!


	12. Three Friends of a Missing Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait! Here's a surprise visit from some friends

Badger looks at his phone and stares at it, hoping that his brain waves could reach into cyberspace and call forth a response from Jesse, because the guy hasn’t been answering any of his texts for like, ever, and every time he goes over to Jesse’s house it seems like that ugly car is in the driveway.

Usually he wouldn’t give a shit and he’d have just gone up and knocked on the door anyways, but the first time that old weirdo had come over, Jesse had looked so spooked and had clearly wanted them to go away so… He backs off and lets Jesse do his thing. Whatever that thing is. He knows that the guy isn’t Jesse’s dad, and he doesn’t look like a druggie or a dealer, so he didn’t have a clue.

But seriously - isn’t almost a month of no contact long enough? Badger stares at his phone some more and when his text goes unanswered for the fiftieth time, he tells himself to man up and he hops in his car and drives to Jesse’s place.

And like the universe was listening to him, the crappy old car isn’t there. He quickly hops out and runs up to the front door, banging on it. Some part of him wonders if the old guy would show up, like he had a month ago, but then he remembers that psychics don’t actually exist.

He sees the curtains on a window pull back slightly, not enough for him to see in, but enough to know Jesse’s there, and he waves excitedly at the window. “Yo, man! It’s me!”

After another minute, the door opens slowly. “Yo, Badger. What’s up?”

He opens his mouth to answer but his jaw just drops open and stays there. Faintly, he thinks of his mother scolding him about letting flies in. “What…  _ happened _ to your face, dude?” It kinda looks like Rocky Balboa had taken Jesse for a round in a boxing ring or something.

Jesse itches a cut on his face and shrugs. “I tripped.”

“Hah, uh, yea, funny. But seriously. Did you piss someone off?”

Jesse shrugs again, and he still doesn’t open the door or move to let him in. He’s giving off some seriously weird vibes, too, looking like he hasn’t slept well in weeks, pale under the blues and purples, and super sad.

“Um,” Badger pauses, trying to figure out what the fuck’s going on. Jesse hadn’t ever acted this way - usually, he’d be cooking up some crystal, hitting up the Crystal Palace, or even cruising around town with him, Skinny, and Combo and just having some fun. But the way he looks kinda makes him think that Jesse hadn’t left his house for like... since Emilio had gotten bagged by the cops and he’d stopped talking to them.

“You need something?” Jesse asks, looking behind him and out at the road. Badger glances over his shoulder, but nothing’s there.

“Just checking in, y’know. You’ve gone all like, radio silent, and it’s kinda freaking me out man.” Badger claps a hand on Jesse’s shoulder and brings his friend’s eyes back to him. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” is the curt answer he gets. Jesse looks down at the ground. “Listen, I don’t have any crystal, and I’m not in the mood to smoke up. So…”

“Oh, no, that’s not, like…” Badger  _ does _ feel a little disappointed that Jesse doesn’t have anything to hook him up with, but that’s totally not what he came here for. “I just -”

“I’m going clean, yo,” Jesse interrupts, sounding kinda proud of himself, mouth twitching up slightly and then dropping back down.

“You’re - woah. Why?” They’ve both been using since forever and he’s never even talked about going clean. Sometimes it got them a little freaked out, ‘cause meth can do that, make you all paranoid and shit, but it never put them off so hard they’d  _ quit _ .

“I’m just… Y’know.” Jesse waves a hand in front of him with his eyebrows raised. “Done with it. Seriously, if I never see crystal again it’ll be too soon.”

“Oh,” Badger says, feeling shocked. “Extreme. Uh, good for you, I guess. Good luck?”

Jesse peers around him again, standing up on his toes to look over his shoulder. Badger looks behind himself, scans up and down the street that he can see. Slowly he asks, “You expecting someone?”

“Yeah,” Jesse answers distractedly. Badger wonders who, because as far as he knows Jesse hasn’t been talking to any of them, and if he was going clean he wasn’t waiting on a customer or a dealer or smurf… And he usually went to the Crystal Palace if he was gonna hook up. Suddenly he remembered the old guy again.

“You waiting for that dude? The one from last time?”

“Yeah. You should probably like, go before he gets here.”

Badger looks at Jesse’s bruises again and feels really worried. “Is that guy hurting you?”

Jesse snorts, rolling his eyes, but Badger doesn’t laugh. After a pause, Jesse raises a brow and curls his mouth into a half-smile, looking like Badger just suggested something so stupid he can’t even figure out the words to tell him  _ how  _ stupid it is.

“Seriously, man,” Badger stubbornly continues. “If he’s like, messing with you, forcing you to go clean or whatever, then just tell me and we’ll kick his ass.”

Jesse curls his lip. “As if you could, dude.” He shakes his head and motions to his own face. “Emilio did this shit. That’s what happened, yo. Him and Krazy-8 thought I was a DEA rat and they tried to teach me a lesson.”

“Emilio and…” Badger feels like two pieces of a puzzle are trying to fit themselves together in his head but he can’t figure out how yet. “Dude, no one’s seen them for like, almost a week.”

“Yeah,” Jesse agrees, voice sounding rougher. “‘S weird, right? Them disappearing after they beat the shit out of me.” There's a pause as Jesse seems to think, struggling with himself, mouth opening and closing a few times without saying anything, but then he leans in, looking so deadly serious that Badger takes a step back. “Listen to me. Don’t ever fuck with that guy you saw.  _ Ever. _ ” He backs up into his house and says, “Get lost.” And closes the door.

* * *

 

Badger’s losing his mind. There’s no fucking way an old, lame, weird looking dude like that killed hardcore badasses like Emilio and  _ Krazy-fucking-8 _ . He’s speeding in his junker of a car all the way to Skinny Pete’s place, somehow afraid that he’d look into his rearview mirror and see that guy’s car coming up behind him.

He jumps out the instant he parks and runs up to the apartment door and he shoves his way inside the instant the door’s open.

“Yo!” Skinny Pete shouts, closing the door behind him. “What’s your deal?”

“Dude, I think Jesse’s in trouble, like serious, really bad trouble.”

Skinny looks confused, his face scrunching up. “What, like, ‘cause he hasn’t been answering his phone?”

“No, man, it’s way worse than that. Look,” Badger yanks his beanie off and pushes his hand through his hair feeling way too worked up. “Remember that old dude who showed up and freaked Jesse out that one day?”

“Yeah?”

“Jesse told me he totally killed Emilio -”

Skinny Pete interrupts him. “Aw, man, you’re tweaking bro. There’s no way -”

“- and Krazy-8, dude, I swear to god. His face is all messed up too, ‘cause I went to see him earlier and he’s all bruised up, man.” Badger twists his beanie in his hands, going to nervously look out the window. “And you know how no one’s seen them for a week? They went missing after they beat up Jesse!”

“... Yo, for real?”

“Yeah!”

“For real, for real? He said that shit? That old dude actually killed ‘em?”

Badger stomps his foot. “Yeah! How many times do I gotta say it? And Jesse looked totally messed up, and not just his face, like - I think this guy might be… I don’t know. Messing with him, or something. Like, after that guy showed up, Jesse stopped answering his phone right?”

He feels exhausted already from all the crazy thoughts and worry bouncing around his head so he collapses on one of Skinny’s couches, dust flying up in the air. He shoves some garbage and dirty clothes over and slumps down.

Skinny screws his face up like it hurts to think so hard, scratching his chin. “So… What? Jesse ain’t a bitch, he wouldn’t let some dude walk all over him like nothing.”

“Yeah, I know but… You didn’t see him, man. He’s got some bad vibes going on. And he’s our friend, yo, we gotta be there for him!”

Skinny Pete nods along with what he says and then flips his phone out. “I’mma call Combo. Let’s go back to Jesse’s place, and like, wait for this dude to show up and like,  _ confront _ him.”

“What, like a stakeout? Like they do on cop shows?”

“Hell yeah!”

Badger grins. “Hell yeah!”

They hop into Badger’s car and go to pick up Combo, fill him in on the situation, eat dinner with his family because his mom made some really yummy salsa and quesadillas, and then stop by a nearby convenience store to grab snacks and drinks - because really, what is a stakeout without some munchies? It’s starting to get dark out by the time they get to Jesse’s house, parking a little ways down the street.

“That’s the car,” Skinny whispers. In the driveway like it belongs there is the kinda puke green colour Aztek sitting next to Jesse’s Monte Carlo.

“Man, we shoulda brought binoculars.” Combo leans forward and back, trying to peer through the car window and peek into Jesse’s house. The lights are on, but they can’t see anyone moving.

They sit in silence for a while, munching on their snacks.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea, huh,” Badger groans from boredom after they’ve reached a half hour of sitting in the car. He flips the radio on and nearly falls asleep. After a full hour, when the sun is all the way down, he feels a hand smack his chest, jerking him out of his half-doze.

“They’re coming out!”

“Oh - shit, let’s go!”

The three of them hastily stumble out of the car, and run quietly across the street. Jesse’s out with the old guy on the porch, standing like,  _ really  _ close to him, holding the guy’s hand. He’s smiling real wide through the swelling and bruising and it’s like he’s a different person than Badger talked to earlier that day.

Badger grabs the other two’s shirts, hauling them to a screeching stop.

“Dude, no way,” Combo gapes.

They all watch in varying degrees of shock as the old guy cups Jesse’s face and leans down to kiss him on the cheek. Before they can fully digest what’s happening or even begin to think about hiding, the guy disengages from Jesse and turns before stopping and staring at them.

Jesse turns with him and stares too.

“What now?” Skinny hisses.

The old guy takes a step towards them but Jesse reaches out and grabs him by the shoulder, pulling him slightly back and saying something quietly to him. Jesse isn’t smiling anymore. He looks scared.

“Uh…” If that guy had seriously killed two guys as badass as Emilio and Krazy-8, then what the fuck did he think he could do? And Jesse was… with him… Like  _ with _ -with him.

Combo shrugs his hand off and keeps walking towards Jesse and the guy. He and Skinny Pete share a look and follow.

“Yo, Jesse, ‘sup?”

Jesse looks at Combo and then quickly down, looking queasy. “Nothing much.”

“Yeah? ‘Cause it looks like there’s a lot that’s up to me, dog.” Combo tilts his head towards the guy, and then seems to jerk in surprise when he sees Jesse’s face properly. “Damn, they really did a number on you.”

The old guy steps between Jesse and Combo, raising a hand up in a ‘stop’ motion. “Gentlemen, may I ask what you’re doing here? Did Jesse invite you?”

“I didn’t!” Jesse hurriedly cuts in before they can answer, eyes wide. “I didn’t. I swear.” The guy slowly looks at Jesse, who looks like he’s about to have a heart attack, and nods like that was the right answer or something.

Badger smacks Combo and Skinny, as if to say “ _ see _ !”. His mom used to act like that when his piece of shit dad was still around, hitting her whenever she acted even a hair out of place. She was always twitchy and jumpy, trying to figure out what he wanted before he could ask for it so that he’d stay in a good mood. It was a real bad look.

“You got a problem with Jesse hanging, old man?” Combo frowns, strolling up even closer but the guy doesn’t budge an inch. He just holds the staring contest until Jesse presses in between them, body angled towards the dude like he’s holding him back.

“Get lost,” Jesse says over his shoulder. Then, to the guy, “Let’s just go back inside, okay?”

“Jesse, man, wait a sec.” Skinny takes his shot. “Listen, yo, we’re all like -  _ concerned _ , yo, we just wanna make sure you’re cool. ‘Cause, I heard what happened with Emilio and that’s -”

“What did you hear?” The guy interrupts, shoving Jesse out of his way. Something about how casual it is for him to push Jesse aside really digs under Badger’s skin, and damn he really has to wonder how many of those bruises  _ really _ came from Emilio, and he watches how Jesse steps back into the guy’s bubble like it didn’t bother him at all.

“Uh -”

“Mr. White,” Jesse sounds like he’s begging, grabbing the guy’s hand and trying to pull him back to this front door.

“What did you hear?” he asks again, shaking Jesse’s hand off.

A bead of sweat rolls down Badger’s neck. This is dangerous shit. “We - we didn’t hear nothing, man. We definitely didn’t hear about how you killed Emilio and Krazy-8. Like, at all. So...” He steps back, hands up. “We’re just gonna go.”

White gives Jesse a look that’s so cold Badger can feel the temperature drop and just like that he's 100% certain that he's gonna see this guy hurt Jesse. But White doesn't move, just turns away back to them with a frown.

“Yeah, we won’t say anything, yo,” Skinny nods. “Especially not if you and Jesse are like… Y’know.”

“Excuse me?” White asks, voice low. “Like what?”

“Homos,” Combo supplies, motioning between Jesse and the guy. Jesse’s jaw drops open. “It’s cool, man. Like, weird, I guess, but cool. You’re still my homie. He’s not like, hurting you or nothing though, right? ‘Cause Badger was freaking, but...”

Badger stares at his two dumbasses of friends. Are they seriously not seeing what he’s seeing?

Jesse shakes his head, eyebrows drawn together. “Um, I’m not -”

“Be quiet, Jesse.” Jesse’s mouth clicks shut and he grabs onto White’s arm, wrapping himself on it. Badger blinks away memories of his mom. White looks between them all for a minute. “If any of you ever leaks to anyone what I  _ may _ have done, then I assure you that it  _ may _ also happen to you.”

“We ain’t rats, yo. Church.” Skinny crosses his heart.

“And I’d appreciate you all letting Jesse have his own space while he goes clean. If he ends up using, and I find out one of you tempted him, even remotely, then  _ something  _ might happen. Understand?”

The three of them nod.

White inclines his head. “Good. I’m glad we all understand each other. Anything else?”

Badger recognizes a dismissal when he hears one, and he’s gotten two hammers dropped on his head today - Emilio and his cousin were killed by some librarian looking dude with a seriously dangerous side, and Jesse was apparently a homo  _ with _ said dude - so he just backs up and goes back to his car.

The three of them quietly pile in.

“Yo, Jesse’s… into dudes?” Skinny asks, like that’s the most important thing here.

Badger looks over again and watches Jesse hugging White on his front porch. He can barely see Jesse’s lips moving, talking right into White’s ear. He can’t shake the feeling that something’s really wrong, and when Combo repeats, “He’s still my homie”, Badger pulls out his phone and texts Jesse.

**be safe, bro**

He doesn’t get a response, and just hopes that Jesse’s okay. He drives by a few times over the next few days, just to see, and almost every time White’s car is sitting in the driveway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for your patience!! next up will be some emotional revelations for our pal Jesse


	13. Return to normal programming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very sorry for the wait! life has a bad habit of getting in the way of things, but here is our new chapter! Enjoy :)

Jesse looks at the keys in his hand, at his car, and then back again. He does it a few more times before he finally manages to unlock it and get in, fighting past his nausea.

_You did this once, you can do it again,_ he hypes himself up while starting the car.

Last time he’d been here, going outside of his safety bubble (not including the hospital trip where he'd been dazed enough not to care) he’d been going out to grab some clothes that wouldn’t make him stick out like a sore thumb in front of Mr. White’s family so he could at least _pretend_ he was mentally stable. It hadn’t been a walk in the park, but it had been a tiny bit easier with how urgent he felt, knowing that Skyler White was the only one that Mr. White would ever come to heel for sometimes, so if he’d ruined shit with her he could’ve been screwed over.

It must have gone alright though despite the emotional breakdown, because Mr. White’s still visiting him, still making sure he’s eating alright and that he’s healing nicely. Everything’s back to normal - or as normal as it can be.

Except for his friends.

Jesse smacks his head on the steering wheel, groaning at how stupid he was to tell Badger something as incriminating as the fact that Emilio and Krazy-8 vanished after they messed with him. He’d gotten a real fucking earful that night after he’d coaxed Mr. White back inside, and honestly, he couldn’t even be pissed about Mr. White having his one-sided yelling match. It had been stupider than hell of him, but he’d _had_ to do something to make sure that the few people he could call friends didn’t end up in a vat of acid because they stepped on the wrong toes. Now he’s left to try and do more damage control before his friends could potentially get the idea to get more involved.

It’s not like he doesn’t really believe them when they said they wouldn’t rat - after all, they never had the first time. But, a small, anxious part of his brain whispers, the first time, they’d been getting paid or at least getting high. And it’s that tiny little niggle of doubt that spurs Jesse to get his ass in gear and head to Badger’s place.

Gripping the wheel, he struggles to keep his breathing steady and calm. The car rumbles to life and he pictures himself on that dark road speeding away from the compound, hair matted, ears ringing, eyes wet with tears of terror and relief and a sadness so deep it cut. Shuddering, he blinks hard to get the image out of his head and bring himself back to reality.

With a trembling hand he switches on the radio, tunes it to a station playing old rock, and breathes a little easier pretending that Mr. White is humming along with it next to him.

Thankfully, he pulls up to Badger’s mom’s house before he can sink back into his head.

Badger’s always been the kind of guy who moves out, loses his job, gets evicted, and then moves back home until he gets a new job so it’s fairly likely he’ll be here. Jesse admires the determination to keep trying at the very least, and he can’t help but wonder what he and Skinny had ended up doing after he’d gotten taken. If they’d kept using, or if they’d tried the 12 step program again. If they’d gotten grabbed by the DEA somehow, even though he’d left them out of his confession. If they’d died. Turns out he’d probably never find out.

He turns the ignition off and wipes his sweaty hands on his jeans. All he’s gotta do is make sure Badger is crystal clear on what’s what when it comes to Mr. White and leave. That’s all.

… _Fuck,_ he’s gonna lose it the second he sees Badger’s face.

He’s been trying so hard for the past few days to try and pretend like his three friends didn’t see Mr. White kiss him on the cheek and then have them straight up call him a homo. Mr. White hadn’t even responded to the blunt accusation at all, brushing right past it like he either didn’t notice or didn’t care. The total disregard for it had somehow actually calmed him down to the point where he didn’t throw a shit fit right then and there, but once Mr. White had left he didn’t have any excuses not to think about it.

There’s a big knot of confused emotions all tangled around his lungs and stomach, twisting around until he’s not sure what the fuck he’s feeling at all.

Just because Mr. White does shit like kiss him on the cheek and hold him and tell him he loves him, it doesn’t like, _mean_ anything like that. And it doesn’t feel strange, either. It hadn’t even crossed his mind to think about what those little gestures could mean - it’s just how they’re coping. There’s still the spectre of the executioner’s axe hanging over Mr. White’s head, but they’ve reached a comfortable equilibrium, finding a rhythm to being around each other.

But the question remains: what the fuck _is_ he feeling? He knows, stupidly, against all fucking common sense and reason, he loves Mr. White so much still it hurts. The burden of that loyal, blood-soaked love has left him crushed, shattered, but he still feels it. After all the permutations it’s gone through, he doesn’t even know what that love means anymore.

He scrubs a hand over his face and feels the lingering bruises. Right now he’s gotta focus. Later on, when he’s safe and home, he can deal with the explosion of conflicting emotions happening in his chest.

The house is a little one story thing in a low class neighbourhood, weeds growing where Badger’s mom had given up trying to keep it reasonably manicured, a well-worn path leading around back, and some pitiful, plastic flowers looking ready to melt in the sun.

Gritting his teeth, he knocks on the door.

“Yo - holy shit, Jesse? What’s up man?” Without waiting for a response Badger swings the door open wider and waves him inside. He goes in, lets himself be pulled over to the couch. “Dude, you okay? Like, y’know, with that guy?”

Jesse’s mouth spasms and he’s not sure whether to laugh or cry. When Badger had come around that day, asking if it was Mr. White who’d beaten his face in his reaction had been to laugh it off because it was too painful remembering how violent they’d always been towards each other, how not too long ago that would have been a very real possibility.

But Jesse doesn’t feel scared like he had after he’d left the business. He isn’t worried anymore that when Mr. White comes over, he’ll leave Jesse’s dead body behind. And Jesse’s not stupid - Mr. White’s still a dangerous man, but at least that dangerous edge isn’t aimed at him anymore.

“We’re good, yo,” Jesse finally settles on. “I - uh - I wanted to like, make sure you guys weren’t freaking or thinking about doing anything stupid.”

“Wha -” Badger looks nervously out the window and then shutters the blinds closed. “Stupid like what? He’s not here right?” And then he peeks out between the blinds as if that’s any more subtle.

“He’s not here, yo. Listen, I’m just telling you, and you can tell Skinny and… and Combo, just stay away from me, okay? From me and him.”

“Jesse, man, I don’t have a _clue_ what is up with you and White, but if he’s like, you know -” Badger pulls back from the window and makes some complex hand gestures “- if he’s like, messing with you, for real, then we got your back!” He strikes a karate pose and Jesse cradles his forehead to stave off his headache.

“He’s not messing with me, dude.”

Badger gives him a disbelieving look and drops his pose. “Whatever you say, man.”

Jesse scrunches his eyebrows together. Where is this paranoia and worry coming from? Like seriously, he’s only seen him with Mr. White twice now and out of nowhere Badger is getting all worked up about Mr. White hurting him. Is it because of him thinking they’re like… together? Jesse flushes and grimaces at the idea again.

He decides to just ask. “What’s your deal with him, anyways? Like, do you think he’s forcing me to…” Jesse grits his teeth and forces it out. “Forcing me to - do stuff?”

“Um, no,” Badger says with a fair amount of worry in his voice. “Is he? Because I was like, ‘Damn, there’s _no way_ this dude is Jesse’s type’, ‘cause you’re always with straight up babes, but it all makes sense if he’s blackmailing you or something! Is it -” Badger looks side to side and then loudly whispers, “Is it because of what happened with Emilio? He killed ‘em and now he’s like, ‘Screw me or else’ -”

“Oh my God. Will you shut up for a second?” Jesse chokes out, running a hand roughly through his hair and trying not to start hysterically laughing. His type? What the _fuck?_ They have gotten seriously off track and he’s getting that feeling of nauseating heat crawling up his chest again that means he’s gonna start having a crying fit in a second. “Okay. One: he’s not blackmailing me, dumbass. Two: remember what I said? Yeah? Don’t come near us again.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Badger agrees unhappily. “So... you’re like, actually into him?”

Jesse wipes roughly at his face, rubbing into his eyes, feeling the red flush spread all across his cheeks and out to his ears. “Is this a fucking interrogation or what?”

“It’s just… hard to believe you’re gay. ‘S kinda weird, like, he's… Y’know.” Badger shrugs, looking mildly uncomfortable.

Part of him wants to say no, he’s not gay, obviously he’s not, but then what would he say about the kissing and the cuddling and the fact that Mr. White was quite literally the only person he’d willingly spent time with for the past month? He could probably come up with an excuse Badger’d believe, but right now nothing was coming to mind. The lies all fell flat before they could form, sitting like weights in his throat.

He grinds the heels of his palm in a little harder until stars burst behind his eyes. “Shut the fuck up,” he says a little more harshly than he means to, halfway to Badger, halfway to his thoughts. He’s starting to feel sick. He needs to leave like, _right now,_ get away from the uneasiness unfurling all over him, so he stands up trembling. “Just - just back off, unless you want to die.”

Mr. White wouldn’t actually kill them. He’d been pissed that Jesse was so uncareful, but they weren’t actually dangerous. If they were, Jesse knows with a cold certainty, then they’d be dead already.

It has the desired effect, though. Badger’s face goes white. In a shaky voice he asks, “Are you for real, bro?”

“Did he sound like he was fucking joking?” Jesse asks harshly, referring to Mr. White’s not-so-vague threats. Badger shakes his head. “Then, yeah, _for real, bro_.”

He stands up and goes to the front door. It doesn’t exactly feel good, but even if Jesse mostly believes Mr. White wasn’t going to murder them, he still feels safer knowing they’re going to keep away from the danger.

“Hey.”

Jesse stops with his hand on the doorknob. “What?”

Badger hesitates for a second. “I’m no homo.” Before Jesse can get pissed off or weirded out at himself again, Badger flings his arms around him and hugs him tight. “Just let me know if you need help or anything, okay?”

Stunned, Jesse stands in place. When’s the last time anyone other than Mr. White hugged him like this? When’s the last time Badger actually seemed to give a genuine shit if he was okay or not? After a few seconds, Badger lets go and awkwardly waits until Jesse opens the door and unsteadily walks out. Without stopping, he gets in his car, blasts the radio until his thoughts get drowned out, and speeds home.

* * *

Mr. White shows up that evening, same as always, and Jesse feels a twist of anticipation in his stomach as he turns his face slightly and Mr. White leans in and kisses his cheek like he was waiting for the invitation. Is this weird? He’s not sure if it’s weird or not, the fact all he has to do is stand a certain way and Mr. White automatically gives him a kiss. It wasn’t something he’d thought about before but now there’s an undercurrent to it, like he’s that coyote from the cartoons, looking down and suddenly realizing he’s about to drop into a chasm.

After dinner, Mr. White brings out some whiskey. “Felt like a change of pace from beer,” he smiles, eyebrow quirking.

That’s perfectly fine with him. Today’s been a tough day and he’s ready to melt his worries away with some hard liquor. He gets out two glasses and pops out some ice from his freezer and snuggles up with Mr. White on the couch. He heats up at the total ease he feels, hears Badger’s voice echo around and around in his head - _You’re like, actually into him?_ He knocks back his drink to drown it out.

Tonight's one of the nights that Mr. White demands to pick the channel and they end up watching a documentary on the prohibition. Jesse's four _very_ generous servings of whiskey in within the hour, trying to smother his constant itch of worry about their relationship, when Mr. White starts talking.

“It's interesting, isn't it Jesse?” Mr. White murmurs, hand swirling the melted ice in his glass. He's only on his second glass, sipping at it slowly.

Jesse swallows back the rest of his glass and unsteadily sits up to get some more. “What's interesting?”

Mr. White's hand easily runs up and down his side as he twists the cap off the bottle of cheap whiskey and pours more into his glass. It feels really nice - soothing, comforting. The room stops wavering as he focuses on the motions of the palm gliding over his spine.

“Maybe you should slow down a bit.”

Petulantly, he decides to slam back his newly poured drink. Before he can stupidly decide to pour _another_ , the hand rubbing over his shoulder blades curls around his shoulder, tugging him back in against Mr. White's side and he goes with it. “Okay, that's enough.”

Jesse grins cheekily at him then remembers Mr. What had been talking before. “Hey, wait - you didn't say. What's so interesting?”

“Ah,” Mr. White smiles a little, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I was going to say that it's _interesting_ how some things that were once illegal are now perfectly acceptable in the eyes of the law.”

Jesse hums and turns further into his side, twisting at the waist and looping his arms around the guy’s chest and snugly fitting his head right into the curve of where Mr. White’s neck meets his shoulder. The hand pauses as Mr. White settles into the embrace and then continues to pet his back. Irrationally, he wishes his shirt was off so it would rub over his skin. Mr. White’s hands always seemed really warm, and it would probably feel really good.

“Some illegal things are alright, take for example Cuban cigars, but then who is it to say what is _too_ illegal…?”

Mr. White keeps talking about the apparent moral grayness of the law but Jesse tunes him out; the way he’s talking is sounding eerily reminiscent of the fake intellectual bullshit he used to spout back in the day that always somehow convinced him of whatever Mr. White wanted him to do, so he’d just rather pay attention to how warm and comfortable he feels right now. He’s not sure if it’s the whiskey or what, but he feels on the verge of falling asleep with the soothing circles on his back and the low rumble of Mr. White’s voice lulling him.

He’s thinking seriously about passing out right then and there but something Mr. White says prickles his ears and he tunes back in through his sleepy fog.

“- even relationships used to be illegal if you weren’t the same race. Not to mention, more and more places are becoming accepting of same-sex relationships, and even marriages now, too. It’s -”

“Mr. White,” Jesse interrupts, speaking right against his neck, lips barely brushing skin, feeling an odd spark of anxious energy running along his ribs.

Mr. White’s hand spasms on his back before it relaxes again, even though his voice sounds a bit tense. “Yes, Jesse?”

“How come you didn’t care that they thought we were like… gay?” He still doesn’t pull away from the warm embrace, so he can’t be sure what Mr. White’s face looks like, but the fingers dig into the base of his back a little and make him squirm even closer into Mr. White’s side to get them to ease up.

“Why should I care what those - er, what they think? I know what the truth is.”

“Yeah, but I mean like…” Jesse nuzzles his face into his neck absentmindedly. “We do act pretty gay.”

There’s a brief pause. “Do we?”

Jesse snorts with laughter. “Are you seeing us right now?” He noses along Mr. White’s throat and up along his jaw. “You totally kiss me on the cheek like, all the time, and we cuddle like a couple of dopey fuckin’ lovebirds and shit. Making me dinner and bringing me booze like you’re wooing me and shit.”

He’s almost a little impressed that he’s talking so casually, but the whiskey has dulled his immediate panic about the odd brushes against this emotional revelation sitting heavily in the base of his heart. There’s a huge _thing_ sitting there, like there's a knife wedged deep in and he’ll start gushing blood if he touches it.

Mr. White seems at a loss for words for once. “I… I didn’t really think about it like that. You’re my -” a short pause as he searches for a word “- friend. I’m just being friendly.” The way he says it sounds so unconvinced that Jesse kinda doubts that's what he really thinks. Maybe he hasn’t thought about it at all, like Jesse hadn’t ‘til his friends had pointed it out.

Still, the concept is ludicrous enough he almost laughs, and squeezes his arms like Mr. White’s a giant teddy bear rather than a weathered murderer. “ _Wow_. If this is what you do with your friends then what the hell do you do with your wife? French kiss every time you see her?”

Mr. White doesn’t answer that.

Curiously, Jesse plants a kiss on Mr. White’s neck, prompting a small surprised sound and another flutter of his hand over Jesse’s back like the guy’s not sure what to do.

“How’s that? _Buddy_?” Jesse asks in a voice that would be mocking if it wasn’t slurred.

“A bit wet.” The tone in his voice is a bit inscrutable so Jesse does it again but he still doesn't get a reaction other than the fingers digging into his back again.

After a few minutes of sitting there in a somewhat tense hug with Mr. White, trying not to pass out and listening to the tail end of the documentary, Jesse’s brow furrows and his legs shift. He’s really got to piss. On wobbly legs he gets up, ignores Mr. White’s sound of careful worry, and manages to get himself to the bathroom and back without falling flat on his face - until he gets back to the couch. He manages to tip over while leaning to sit down, and ends up toppling onto the couch haphazardly.

“Have a nice trip?” Mr. White quips, looking down at him with a quirked brow.

His head’s in Mr. White’s lap, body sprawled inelegantly halfway on, halfway off the couch. Grumbling, he adjusts himself and rolls over so he’s lying properly on it, letting himself stay horizontal. The world’s spinning a bit, and he’s tired so he just stays put.

“Coming back up?” Mr. White asks, one of his hands landing gently on his chest and the other threading through his hair.

Jesse sighs contentedly then yawns. “Nope.”

Mr. White runs his fingers through Jesse’s hair from root to end, scratching at his scalp lightly, twirling his hair around and sending shivers of goosebumps running across his body. He had thought hard about buzzing his hair down again, to go back to how he used to look after he’d killed Gale, maybe to match the fact that Mr. White had started to look like he had at the end, but something had kept him from it and right about now he’s feeling pretty glad that he had held off.

“That feels nice,” Jesse smiles, eyes drifting shut.

Mr. White keeps petting him and he asks, “Did it bother you? That they believed we were together? Is that why you were asking about it?”

Jesse shrugs. The delicate balance of the knife resting in his chest wobbles a bit so he ignores it and turns and curls up, pressing his face into Mr. White's stomach. It's still too dangerous to think about how this is making him feel.

“I wanna go to sleep,” he says, muffled.

Mr. White laughs quietly, caressing his head like he's a dog or something. “Let me get up then, and we'll get you off to bed, you lush.”

He whines before he can stop himself. Right now, being pet and held, he's feeling comfortable and warm and the last thing he wants to do is get up.

“Jesse, son, come on. Up,” Mr. White says a bit more insistently, patting his chest.

“Don’t wanna...” Jesse buries his face further into Mr. White’s soft belly and breathes in the warm, comforting smell that seems so uniquely Mr. White. Plaintively, he asks, “Can you keep touching my hair?”

There’s a long pause. And then, “Alright.” And Mr. White strokes his head, fluttering his short hair between his fingers, rubbing his warm palm across it, smoothing it. Within a few minutes, he passes out into a blissfully dreamless sleep, and when he wakes up he finds himself nestled on the couch with blankets tucked around him and pillows under his head, and Mr. White is long gone.

Jesse spends the rest of the day reconciling with himself that maybe Badger wasn’t too far off about them after all, and that he’s not as freaked out about it as he thinks he should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are finally heating up! I will try not to let this sit for so long again... Next up is back to Walt's POV.


End file.
